


Aegis (In This World or Any Other)

by Lucidlucy



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (2017), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: #SaveMitaka, Alternate Universe - Mythology, Bring on all the UST, Death and the Maiden, Does a sacrificial bride count as arranged marriage?, Everyone hates their names, F/M, Finn is so done with town people, First Kiss, Hades & Persephone, Irresponsibly carving up mythology for the juicy bits, Mythology - Freeform, Other tags to be added, Rating subject to change, Retelling, Rey should have listened to the locals, Reylo - Freeform, Reylo Mythology AU, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-29
Updated: 2018-04-12
Packaged: 2018-11-06 05:26:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 56,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11029560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lucidlucy/pseuds/Lucidlucy
Summary: Those whom the gods love die young. To obtain a god’s attention is to hand over your life, so keep your head down and pray that they never notice you.She took pity on the god no one ever visited, the god she doesn’t believe in, when she started leaving small offerings at his feet. She should have listened to local superstition.





	1. Chapter 1

_ Oh, the old gods, look how they stand  
on pyres of brimstone and dust _

*

There are footprints on the floor, the black marble tiles of the temple Rey’s quickly learning to call a sanctuary coated with the same pale yellow dust that clings to every being in her town, though here, at least, it is undisturbed by traffic and noise. Unless she counts her own, of course. Rey pushes the door slowly, mindful of the noisy hinges as she takes a step inside, leaving behind another footprint on the floor in the wake of her shoes next to all the others that match it. She looks behind her just in case, though there’s little need to. Nobody comes out here. Nobody dares.

Nobody but her, that is.

“Finally,” she mutters, tugging down the bright red scarf she’d wrapped around her head and face. It did little in terms of being inconspicuous as she had crossed the town, sidestepping gawkers and peddlers, but at least it hid her from the sun and her face from prying eyes. Not that there is anything wrong with what she’s doing, it’s just simply… unheard of.

Rey licks her lips to return some moisture to them, knowing full well it’ll only crack them further, then lets the door fall shut, the wooden echo bouncing off the giant marble pillars inside as she takes her first slow but steady steps forward. There is little need to stare at the decor, having done plenty of ogling at the beautiful yet austere interior on her first nervous visit. She walks quickly to the end of the chamber instead, sitting at the foot of the giant statue there. The God of Death, they call him, nameless in his existence but for his title, for fear that naming him may bring him upon fearful mortals along with the gift only he can bestow.

Well, the God of Death would have to deal with her presence for a little longer.

She opens up her bag of pilfered goods from the kitchens, then looks up, towards the domed ceiling above the statue, impossibly high and breathtaking, where stars are painted to reflect a night sky. It is her favorite thing about this temple, aside from the fact that it’s always empty. Every star opens up to a small pinprick that lets in light during the day, the one source of light in the room. It bathes its mighty subject below in a damp, ethereal gloom that, combined with the dust floating in the air, gives Rey the impression of an otherworldly haze. 

Perhaps that’s why this place is never visited by anybody else. It was never meant to feel as though it were part of her world. Well, it may be dusty in here, but at least it’s cool. So unlike the hard clay and sandy, bright, scorching desert outside. Rey squints at the dome, watching the pinpricks of light become constellations, then her eyes fall back on the statue. 

The silent God of Death.

Ugly, overbearing fellow, that one. Whoever envisioned the statue must have imagined Death to be a monster.

“Hello, friend,” her greeting echoes around her. “Hope you haven’t been too lonely today, what with being abandoned here all by yourself.”

She scoffs at the silence, amused nonetheless by her one-sided conversation with the hunk of shaped rock, patting one of his giant toes. She must be going insane, talking to the statue of a god she doesn’t believe in. At least he’s quiet, unlike the chattering girls at the cloister. It’s much nicer to eat here, she thinks, with cool air and a silent, giant statue for company. Though, really, it seems a waste to create such an extravagantly rich temple just to leave it empty. It may be austere in its decoration, but the marble of the statue alone must have cost a fortune. She looks around the temple again while chewing her bread, tearing into a chunk of salted meat she’s not entirely sure what kind of animal it comes from but refuses to inspect too closely. Food is food, and she’d known plenty of days without it. Had it not been for the kind woman who found her near starving and chose to give her a life as a High Priestess’s errand girl, Rey would have long ago died of starvation. 

Rey chomps off another piece of meat, her eyes once more gravitating towards the statue relaxing in his massive throne, his book of judgments opened on his lap as he leisurely leans back in his seat, looking for all the world as though he has eternity at his disposal. She squints in the dim light, wishing the torches were lit so she could see better, trying to get a good look at what’s hidden from view deep inside the marble cowl shadowing his features. Perhaps the artist _truly_ thought the God of Death to be ugly? 

“Seems like you got shafted, friend,” she says through a half mouthful of food, swallowing quickly when a shiver running down her back threatens to make her choke. Did the air get a little cooler? Rey shakes her head and pats his toe again with a sigh. The room returns the sound back to her like a watery ghost. “It’s okay. So did I. Guess we have that in common.”

Silence. 

“Did you like your present?” she teases him, returning to her food and digging in her bag for some dried fruit. She would have rather taken some fresh fruit but that required going too close to the baker, who would surely strike her hands with a paddle for thievery and scavenging before it was truly lunchtime, but Rey had little desire to eat with all the other girls. She’d entered the cloisters as an orphan nobody, and only when the High Priestess had seen her grow and appraised her as a _beauty to please the gods_ was Rey considered for a place at the table, worthy of initiation along with all the other high born, aristocratic girls devoting themselves to make-believe beings forever.

So stolen dry fruit would have to do.  

“No?” she asks, chuckling. “Maybe next time I’ll bring you something other than a shiny rock. Would you like some of this fruit, maybe?” 

More silence. 

Well, she _had_ wanted silence. It’s just unfortunate that talking to stone results in it even in those moments when she’d rather have a response. Go figure. She places a strip of dry fruit at his feet nonetheless, next to the shiny rock she’d left a week ago, highly amused at her own antics. If the rock hadn’t been touched, the fruit would be there next time as well, probably rotting. It is a sin to waste food to her, but, well— she could afford a _little_ waste now. Just a small bit, for her own amusement. Her High Priestess would think it commendable, so long as she doesn’t find out which God she’s leaving mocking offerings to. 

“Don’t worry,” Rey promises. “I’ll clean it up next week if you don’t like it.”

The air around her cools once more and Rey sighs. It makes her shiver, that tiny difference in temperature, like a soft caress to her otherwise warm cheeks. She relishes that feeling, wondering how the air circulates around the chamber to allow for such a welcome occurrence. She takes off her red scarf completely, pooling it at her side and feeling said cool air on her neck, hiking up her skirts to her knees and leaving her skin bare, wishing she could trade the ridiculous ensemble for her old boys’ pants. At least in those she could move around before. Now she’s stuck wearing this stupid white dress no matter where she goes. Sure, it keeps the scoundrels off her back — nobody would _dare_ touch a priestess initiate and ruin their maidenhood, lest the wrath of heaven pour on their unsuspecting heads — but it sure made moving about inconvenient. The cool air between her thighs is worth the inconvenience, though. 

Rey peers up at the dome again. The light’s shifted, which means it’s time to go. If she stays too long people will start wondering where she’s gone, and why she’s shirking her duties. She may be an initiate now, but though her bowing and scraping had lessened, her fetching duties had not, some sort of unspoken agreement having passed behind Rey’s back that as the sole nobody amongst her peers, and one with the proper bartering skills, she was to fetch cloth and thread at Jakku market. 

“Back into the hard sun and the dust,” she grumbles, pulling her skirts down and smoothing them before doning her scarf. She would have to hurry.  Rey pats the small pouch full of money at her belt, making sure it’s secure, before looking up at the statue.

“I’ll see you in a week, old man,” Rey says with an indulgent smile. “Sorry I can’t visit more often, as much as I’d like to. The matrons would start noticing my sudden disappearances at lunch time. Try not to feel too lonely while I’m gone, even if you don’t exist. I’ll try and bring you something other than dried fruit, yes?”

The only things that trail her on her way out are her giggles and the clicking sound of her shoes. That and a quickly cooling rush of air, one she hardly notices as she steps out into the sun.

So much for talking to a God. It’s only stone. She can’t for the life of her imagine what people find so scary about _that_.

 

****

Below, past the layers of the worlds, through the fabric of the universe, in a place that is neither quite here nor quite there, a stoic God’s lips crack into a minute smile.

She had felt him, he thinks, when she’d hiked up her skirts and removed her threadbare scarlet scarf, like a small whisper. He watches her leave from the placid pool of luminescent water at his feet, her white skirts disappearing past the doors of his domain where he can see without the aid of messengers.

“Old man, you say?” he drawls, tapping middle and forefinger to his cheek, jaw cupped in his hand as he leans back into his throne, much like that misguided statue of him in the temple. Kylo chuckles. “I suppose you’re right.”

From the corner of his vision he sees Mitaka, the ferryman who carries souls across dimensions to him and his own personal messenger, as he enters Kylo’s throne room with a lighted torch, the ghostly blue flame flickering in the cool air. 

“Still watching the girl, my Lord?” Mitaka asks with airs of resigned patience, yet still with an underlying thread of nervousness. Kylo’s eyes follow Mitaka as he comes forward with Kylo’s meal, placing it gently to the side within reach of his hand. Kylo’s subdued smile never eases.

“Perhaps.”

Mitaka holds his torch closer to the pool, shining its pale blue light over it, but the girl is long gone.

“Of all the beings in the universe, why that one?” Mitaka asks, unable to keep the wonder off his voice. Kylo supposes that, when there’s nothing else in the way of entertainment centuries at a time, even his Master’s curiosity becomes Mitaka’s own. Kylo can hardly blame him. He chuckles.

“She talks.”

Mitaka gives him a strange look, as if to say, ‘ _well of course she talks. All humans do,’_ but he remains silent. A wise choice. Kylo may give his servants far more lenient care than other gods gave theirs, perhaps even a measured amount of friendship, but some hierarchical sense of order still remained. Mitaka would never dare be insolent. 

“As you say, my Lord. If that is all, I’ll take my leave.”

Kylo waves a hand non-committally, dismissing the man, then turns to his food before humming. Everything looks delicious, except something feels as though it’s missing. Then he remembers. With another flick of his wrist, his little visitor’s new offering lands on his plate, a strip of dried fruit he hadn’t tasted in a very long time. Kylo smiles. Well, at least that’s one of the perks of being a deity. 

He bites into a corner of it, tasting the sugary flavor and remembering her words, then chuckling to himself when he imagines her surprise to find it gone as he settles to eat his food before he must return to his duties. 

She talks, indeed. Suddenly he can hardly wait to see what her next offering will be. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Welcome to this new story of mine. Hope you enjoyed the introduction. A few things of note: Mind the irresponsible carving of mythology tag. It is not Greece, though it certainly borrows some things from it. While it draws heavily from our world, it is not set in it. That said, if you're wondering who Mitaka's role belongs to, that job is usually given to [Charon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charon_\(mythology\)), the ferryman of Greek myth. This story will not be sticking to Greek mythology only, so I'll make sure to link those things here. 
> 
> You know what they say, comments water your local author plant.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, you guys, thank you so much for flooding the introduction to this story with love and support (you very much watered your local author plant with all those comments! And Kudos!). That was insane! I'm glad so many of you are on board with me for this story. Enjoy the second chapter!

Kylo had never expected a visitor. Not in her world, at least. Imagine his surprise, then, when he’d felt a presence disturb the sanctuary that had been erected in his name— a laughable concept, that one, considering the mortals of her world refused to utter it. Not that they truly could. They hardly knew it. It had been lost to them in the sands of their time, long before this little creature ever stepped foot on those marble tiles.

He’d checked to see who would dare disturb the tomb-like tranquility of the place, for it gave him something to do, something other than shepherd souls and judge their misdeeds day in and day out. 

A girl. 

His surprise had been met with a girl, slender and beautiful and plucky as any creature he’d ever seen across the centuries, across worlds, watching from his throne as she’d walked inside looking for a moment’s respite. He’d watched with piqued interest, waiting to see what this slip of a mortal would do, only to watch her nervously approach the statue at the center of the chamber and take up temporary residence at its feet, eating quickly and quietly between thankful, breathy sighs about the cool air. He’d taken it upon himself to send tendrils of it into the chamber with a soft wave of his fingertips, caressing her neck and slender arms with a touch of the divine, amused at the shivers and relieved noises that shook her spine and left her mouth. 

She hadn’t spoken to him that first day, though. Or to what she believed to be him, really. She’d simply sat and busied herself with her stolen foodstuffs, looking quietly about the temple floor and darting nervous glances at the door like a skittish mouse who’s afraid to be caught. Not that she would, really. Nobody came to visit that tomb of hollow stone and silence, which gave him plenty of time to watch as she’d relaxed into herself. It had been apparent she’d only been looking for solitude, and that temple had plenty of it to offer. Then she’d left, and Kylo had quickly pushed the incident away as a mysterious abnormality and nothing more, returning to his droning duties.

Yet his piqued interest had then become morbid curiosity when she’d returned again the week after, and the week after that. Each time she walked with a little more confidence, her steps becoming lighter and self assured, until, on her fourth visit, she’d left him a gift. A gift! An offering, in _this_ world. And Kylo had laughed for the first time in a century, a deep-chested chuckle that made the stones around him vibrate with energy, for a god’s laugh held power. Her gift had been but a pebble, a shiny, worthless rock. He’d summoned it to his realm, inspected it closely, then returned it to the place where she’d left it, knowing his little guest might spook if she were to find her hiding place disturbed so quickly. 

Her visits are but a blink of an eye in his lifespan, a breath long held then quickly released, lasting only seconds. And yet he finds those seconds to be the most fascinating ones in his long days, for it turns out that this girl doesn’t fear him. 

Which is why he finds himself sitting on his throne now, running long, pale fingers through the pool at his feet, bringing up an image of his favorite past time as she enters the dwelling her mortal kind have made for him, a quirked lip in the vague semblance of an amused smile. Such an odd thing to cross his face, yet it has been happening more and more lately. 

What would the little mouse do this time? 

****

Rey only spares a single glance back through the door before she lets it fall shut behind her. Her red scarf comes off, and then she hikes up the bottom of her skirts, looping the hems at the waist, around her belt, so that she’s bare from the knees down. Then, and only then, does she let out the biggest sigh of relief. Sweet, sweet cold air.

_Sweetest thing I’ve ever felt._

If she could bottle up the feeling and sell it at the market, she wouldn’t need to stay as an initiate. She’d be rich beyond her wildest dreams, what with the town suffocating in permanently blistering heat. How this temple managed to stay both cool and empty of anybody but her seeking its delicious sanctuary, she’d never know.

She takes in a big gulp of air again and sags into herself. From where she stands at the door she can see the looming mass of Death, or, as she’s come to call him, _the old man_. 

Well, there’s her answer. He’s still as foreboding and unapproachable as last week. Rey shakes her head, feeling a little bad for him, pulling off the bag from her shoulders with her lunch as she steps forward, adding to the dusty footprints on the marble floor.

“Hello, old man,” she greets the statue as if he could truly answer, unknowing that somewhere far away, a god chuckles and greets her back. “I hope you’re doing well. How’s the solitude? Boring, I assume.”

She reaches the bottom of the step and looks up, giving the most impish smile before plopping down at the foot of it, opening her bag to look inside. 

“I have much to tell you about my day. Also, I brought you a gift,” Rey says into the brown, rough weave of the bag, unbothered to raise her voice, for who could really hear her here? “It’s not much, but I hope you like it.” 

Out comes an apple, which she moves to place next to her previous offerings before her fingers halt mid-air. The strip of dried fruit is gone. She frowns, eyes darting about her surroundings immediately, looking for other footprints and feeling slightly defensive. Not that realistically she should have any reason to feel defensive at all. It is not a crime to visit a god’s temple, whatever the local superstitions, but if someone were to be listening in on her during her visits? Well, that would be an entirely different story. Rey could very well be hung or burnt as sacrifice for her blatant blasphemy. But she finds nothing out of the ordinary, so she turns back to where the rock is, only to find tiny paw prints she could have _sworn_ were not there a minute ago. Yet there they are, clear as day, and Rey lets out the of air from her lungs with a relieved _whoosh_. 

Desert mouse, perhaps? Yeah, they look like mouse prints. She wets her lips, looking up towards the star-littered dome. Having her albeit meager and insignificant existence flashing before her eyes for a moment, along with the multiple ways in which she’d be punished for blasphemy, had left her slightly disoriented. That momentary scare alone has her thinking that perhaps these visits are more trouble than they’re worth.

****

He watches the girl as she gets on her knees and crawls up one of the wide marble steps, an apple in hand, making her way to the statue’s feet on her bare knees, the angle providing him with a bird’s eye viewpoint. She looks so small down there. Kylo waves his fingers gently once more, and the view changes, this time to her face as she scrunches up her nose.

“Does nobody ever clean this place?” she grumbles when her hand meets the statue’s toe and comes off dusty. Kylo bites down on the corner of his mouth to keep from outright laughing as she takes it upon herself to remedy the situation. “I know you’re supposed to be a big, fearsome creature or something, but if there’s one thing I detest, it’s filth.” The little mouse grabs her scarf, as red as the blood coursing through her veins, and sets to dusting said marble foot. “One would think for as much stock as they put in you, they’d at least keep you clean.”

Kylo leans his cheek on his fist, watching her closely. Even from his perch he can make out the smattering of freckles on her nose, the crystalline image on the pooled waters of the Styx at his feet giving him a perfect window into her presence, sharp and alive and bright, unlike so many things in his realm. He watches her fastidiously wipe at the stone, her bunched up white skirts brushing the floor at her knees. 

Funny, that of all the creatures who would dare care for this place, it would be the heretic who’d take it upon herself to look after it. The whole irony of it makes him chuckle. 

“Perhaps I should bring you here so you could help clean _this_ place, little mouse.” His musings meander as she finally places the apple on the spot she’d now cleaned, erasing away the fake paw prints he’d planted in a blink for her sake, and lets out a soft huff. What does she see when she looks at that statue, he wonders? 

Just as he’s letting his imagination start to get the best of him, watching her quickly begin to look for her own meal - the reason she bothers traipsing to the outskirts of her town to visit to begin with - her nimble fingers making quick work of pulling out bread and cheese and a canteen of water, Mitaka enters his throne room.

“Forgive me, My Lord,” Mitaka says, clutching onto the oar he occasionally doubles for a walking stick, his other hand raising a blue flamed torch up to bring a bit more light to the already watery, grayish glow that seems to emanate from everywhere and nowhere at once. Mitaka’s padding steps make him look up for a second before Kylo’s eyes return to the pool, seeking out the only source of light and entertainment lately. 

“Speak,” he says, idly tapping a finger on his chin while the other hand draws circles in the empty air, arm draped over the side of the massive crystal throne rising up from the earth. Every drumming twirl circulates the air in her room, moving gently in her dimension, for he’s come to learn she enjoys the drifting coolness it creates. 

“My Lord—“ Mitaka interrupts his thoughts, tearing them away from the hem of her skirts as they swish around the back of her knees, watching her bite into her food with fervor. “You have a visitor.”

His eyes snap up, brows furrowing, fingers stopping mid-motion and with it the gentle swishing of her skirts. 

“A guest?” he says, lips pursing immediately. “What have I said about guests, Dopheld?”

Before Mitaka has a chance to speak, however, a booming voice breaks the quiet spell Kylo had just been enjoying moments ago.

“Since when do I need a reason to see you, _brother?_ ” that word is spat out, hissed, really. “It’s bad enough I must announce myself like the common rabble. Me—“

“What do _you_ want?” Kylo says at the approaching redhead, keeping the barely contained snarl off his face as he fights the need to bare his teeth, his mood souring immediately. The last thing he needs now is _this_ visitor. “Haven’t you plenty of _other_ places to be, Taj?”

His unwanted guest’s upper lip lifts in a minute sneer, and the satisfaction curling through Kylo’s ancient veins is worth pushing down on that particular bruise. Armitage Hux _hates_ being addressed by his first name, a name as ancient as his own, as ancient as the stones in Kylo’s massive, cavernous throne room. The only two things he hates more are being addressed by the inconsequential nickname, and Kylo himself. Oh, Hux _hates_ Kylo. 

The feeling is mutual.

“Is that any way to greet your kin?” Hux asks. Kylo arches an eyebrow.

“Enough already,” Kylo says, watching Hux’s approach. “What do you want this time?” 

Looking at Hux borderline hurts Kylo’s eyes, with robes and cloak of shining white too out of place here, too bright, too dazzling; locks of red too vibrant, burning like not even Dopheld’s torch can. Instead of answering, however, Hux’s eyes narrow infinitesimally on the vision of the girl, eyebrow twitching when her voice carries across the throne room like a soft, far away bell.

“What is this?” he asks, feigning interest. Or maybe it _is_ true interest, Hux’s gaze taking on an otherworldly cunning twinkle, the usual thundercloud grey of his eyes now pale and silvery in the blue reflection of the pool.

“Nothing you need concern yourself with,” Kylo says, swiping his arm across the air above it, the motion violent as the image is torn and shredded. The pool falls quiet, bottomless as the river from which it originates, the currents underneath carrying the murmurs of the dead. “State your purpose or leave, I have things to do.”

“Funny,” Hux murmurs, eyes still on the pool. “Didn’t seem like you had been too busy with your duties.” Then he looks up, and the silver shine disappears, morphing once again into that colorless depth, rain and skies devoid of warmth. “Which is why I’m here. My realms are starting to overflow.”

“And what does that have to do with me?” 

“Well,” Hux says, swinging his arms lazily about the throne room as if to illustrate. “Considering which realm you inhabit, I was starting to wonder if, perhaps, you had been… what’s the word?” Hux stops for emphasis, then his eyes fall on the now placid pool at Kylo’s feet. “ _Distracted.”_

“Leave.”

The calm command is given almost casually, but beneath the single word lies the knife-sharp edge of Kylo’s temper, his patience stretched paper thin. It’s Hux who finally breaks their staring match, nodding his head in mocking deference as he turns on his heel and casually walks back towards Mitaka, who’s made himself smaller in the corner. Even for his messenger, used to death as Dopheld Mitaka is, a showdown between two immortal gods is not something he wants to be around to witness. 

“Remember your duties, _Ren_ ,” Hux says, the honorific slicing down like a well timed pull on a guillotine. Kylo narrows his eyes as his counterpart throws him one last, unamused glance. “And mind your… personal interests. We were never meant to mix.”

Kylo grinds his molars on the ‘ _we_ ’ but says nothing as Hux departs. There is no need to ask Hux to whom he’s referring. Gods have no business consorting with the creatures they are meant to rule. But they had once been just like them, like the humans. Once, eons ago. He can hardly remember those days, what it’s like to feel the sun on his face. No, the sun and the skies of every world belong to Hux, and everything under them. The absolute bastard. 

Kylo lets out the soft growl that had up until this moment taken up residence in his throat, eyes narrowed at the giant carved onyx doors as they close behind Mitaka with the unworldly groan of mountains grinding together, his servant throwing him one last apologetic glance before leaving him to escort his _visitor_. 

He drops back into his throne, his mood no longer light and airy. No, he thinks, no. He wouldn’t let Hux get under his skin. Hux is of no consequence. The girl, on the other hand... 

He once more sweeps his hand and lets the image of his little mouse return. But she’s gone now. Has been gone for a while, it seems. Time in her dimension flows differently than his, and just like that, his few seconds of fresh air and entertainment have evaporated. Yet she’d left her present for him behind. Another wave of fingers and the apple appears in his grasp, frighteningly green in the otherwise colorless shadows he inhabits. He tries not to let Hux’s disruption get to him. Much.

With another growl of annoyance, he chomps into the juicy offering.  


****  


“Watch it!” a voice barks only to shift in tone, the shoulder that had bumped into her jerking back, hunching into its owner as Rey wheels about, “Oh! Oh, gods— I’m so sorry, anointed one, I didn’t mean harm.” The man who’d rammed into Rey sputters, looking about for backup from passersby who simply avert their eyes. Rey smiles at him to attempt to ease him, reminding herself of her role rather than letting out the swear word that had settled on the tip of her tongue, her shoulder stinging.

“It’s fine,” she says. He shifts on his well worn boots, looking sheepish.

“Thank you.” he says, then stalls.

“What is it?”

“Well… since you’re already here and all, m’lady. Please, will you spare a prayer for an old man?” the man asks. The title makes Rey cringe internally — initiates are not anointed to anything, unlike the priestesses, not that it stops the regular folk from calling her and others like her by it. She nods, though, because it’s easier to promise a good word to a make believe god than it is to go about a cutthroat town wearing anything but her initiate robes and dress. They offer her a shield of safety not even an army ever could. 

“Of course, no offense taken. Tell me, what ails you?” she asks with a practiced voice she’d often heard from the High Priestesses as they asked what to send with their prayers, even if the Priestesses never actually delivered on their promises. Out of sight, out of mind, as they said. Rey at least bothered to remember and offer them up in the mornings _just in case_ something out there listened, though she finds the whole pomp at the crack of dawn to be ridiculous. 

“My knee,” the man complains, pointing to his right kneecap, “it’s been aching for weeks now.”

“Nothing a few weeks of rest and a good poultice won’t fix,” Rey hears the whispered grumble of her walking companion at her side, who had remained silent until now while watching the whole thing. Rey shoots him an admonishing yet amused glare before turning to the old man who’d bumped her, promising him she’ll _send the prayer to the skies_ as she’d been taught, then sends the supplicant on his way.

“Or maybe he could turn back time and stop being old,” her friend once again grumbles, dark eyes narrowing under equally dark, furrowed brows. Rey laughs, casting looks about her quickly before jabbing him in the arm.

“Finn!” she hisses, “you’re supposed to be a compassionate healer!”

Finn had been one of the cloister’s healers for about as long as Rey had been an initiate, his apprenticeship well under way when she’d walked in for a physical with the aging physician who still resides in the grounds.

“That’s exactly why I say it,” he gripes. “They think the gods - may They bestow Light upon us forever - will cure their every ailment if only they make _you_ pray hard enough when there’s already _medicine!_ And yet they shun it,” he says, the high color rising on his dark cheeks below the soft sheen of sweat. “And for what?” 

Rey looks at him again as they resume their walk, feeling both amused and frustrated for and with her friend. Part of his apprenticeship requires him to tend to the needy in town, except most people would much rather ask Rey for a prayer than the healer for his services. 

“How am I going to complete my apprenticeship if they don’t let me _do my job?”_ Finn gripes again, throwing a dirty look at everyone and everything. He doesn’t know how Rey feels about the gods, and she’s loath to tell him the whole truth other than she has _some_ misgivings, though she’s wanted to a lot of times. In his mind, gods do exist. The difference is, in Finn’s mind, those same gods are there to weigh in on matters of the soul, not of flesh and bone. That’s meant to be _his_ expertise. Expertise which he takes very seriously. His becoming an apprentice healer had been his ticket to salvation from cracked clay streets and a life spent starving as much as Rey’s initiation had been hers.

“I’m sure they’ll come around,” Rey promises, then smiles for his benefit. “And if they don’t, I’m sure they’ll be _thrilled_ to finally meet the old ma— I mean, _Ren —_ then their agony will finally end.”

Finn throws her a weary look, thick, soft lips pursing in disapproval. “ _Shhh!_ Don’t you joke about those things,” he hisses, leaning in and looking around and making a two-fingered symbol on his forehead. A protection to ward against evil. “You know He might be listening.”

It takes all she has not to roll her eyes, or speak the first so many scathing words that crop up in her mind. Instead she sighs, bowing her head ever so slightly in acquiesce. Finn lets out a soft breath. “And talking about that, where have you been going every week at lunch time? Don’t think your escapades are going unnoticed, Rey. I’ve already seen the High Priestess poking her nose about. If she gets a whiff of whatever it is you’re doing—“

Rey’s back stiffens. It’s been two days since she’d last visited. She’s been seen? No. She’s not doing anything wrong. This is preposterous. 

“It’s _fine_ , Finn. I’ve just been… walking my old streets,” she says, “remembering life, I suppose. My rites will be coming up in a few months. It makes me… nostalgic. But also thankful. I’ve been delivering coin and food to those in need.”

The lie falls so quickly from her lips it makes her stomach swoop with guilt. Well, the half lie. An innocent half lie. She _had_ been doing those things. Right before taking off for the outskirts of town through unseen, cramped little alleys. But Finn doesn’t need to know that yet, if she can help it. She’d much rather keep her sanctuary a secret a little longer before being forced to stop. A priestess initiate walking regularly into that one temple would be seen as an invitation for Death to pay them all a visit. That’s why nobody visited it to begin with. Rey gets a feeling that Finn’s not quite buying the explanation, though. 

“Well, whatever it is you’re doing, keep your head down, Rey,” Finn warns, though the tension in his shoulders eases. She always finds it amusing, the thin line these people walk. They revere the gods, yet fear them. They want their blessings, yet balk at the idea of their attention. What a load of contradictory nonsense. Yet adhering to - or appearing to adhere to - those beliefs had kept her dressed, housed, and fed. Not to mention _safe_ , so who is she to tell people otherwise?

“Always,” Rey smiles at Finn, passing by a young child and depositing a copper coin in his open, waiting hands, for once meaning the softness in her voice when she wishes him well and strokes her fingers down his spun-gold hair. At her side, Finn relaxes.

She’d have to stay away from the temple. At least for a little while to keep suspicions at bay. Rey sighs under her breath as Finn stops at a vendor stall, launching into his haggling with the vendor as they argue about the freshness and prices of the herbs on display. She’d miss the solitude and the cool air, but at least it wouldn’t be forever. Once she became a priestess, nobody would _dare_ question her movements. 

That day can’t come soon enough. 


	3. Chapter 3

The little mouse stops visiting. 

Kylo lets it go at first, a reminder of Hux’s last visit still fresh in his mind as he sits on his throne and fills his waking days by listening to one unending tale after another; creatures from all reaches of the galaxy now stripped of their corporeal bodies, until only the flame of their essence float before him, putting forth every deed done in their miserable lives.

But as the hours turn monotonous, as he finds himself once more caught up in an endless cycle of death, and judgement, only to crawl into his bed with mind-numbing exhaustion for yet another sleepless eternity, Kylo Ren’s thoughts wander back to the mouse— the _girl._

He doesn’t even know her name. Yet. 

It starts as a niggling in the back of his mind at odd hours. That odd stretch of time in which he does not feel her presence entering the temple at all feels eternal. So he checks in again, gauging the days as best as he can. 

Nothing.

_Where are you, little mouse?_

For all of his powers, without knowing her whereabouts his vision is tethered to this single temple. It would be like looking for a needle in a haystack, for he has nothing of hers with which to guide himself, not even so much as her life signature. Kylo drums his fingers on the arm of his throne, staring at the dark abyss pooled at his feet, eyes narrowed.

_Where are you, little mouse?_

He shouldn’t care. Not really. It’s just a mortal, and he has more pressing things to do. Like ensure that Hux wouldn’t get on his back about his duties again. Yet he’s found himself missing that bright burst of sporadic light she’d brought into his days, however short lived, and as Mitaka once more enters the throne room and quietly places food at his side, Kylo’s eyes narrow further.  

Mitaka’s quieter than usual, no doubt having sensed Kylo’s increasingly foul mood. A minute flinch skitters down his spine as Kylo’s eyes slowly traverse from the view of an empty, dusty desert temple shimmering before him to Mitaka’s face.

“Dopheld,” Kylo greets, barely sparing a glance towards the gleaming silver tray piled high with food. 

“My Lord,” says Mitaka, bowing slightly at the waist, his torch held high. He dares throw a small glance at the image before focusing on Kylo. “Still nothing?”

It is a quiet question, but laced through it Kylo can sense a small amount of hope. Mitaka has, in his own way, allowed himself to be curious about the girl, if only because of Kylo— a combination of having listened to the girl’s chirpy voice floating across the throne room and the obvious effect said voice has had on Kylo’s mood. Yet that question is not without a healthy amount of caution, for which Kylo can hardly blame his messenger. The last time he’d been around to hear said voice, Mitaka had also almost gotten stuck between two gods with explosive temperaments and a robust distaste for each other. 

Kylo simply lets out a derisive, soft snort, turning to dig into his food. Mitaka, not having quite been dismissed, stands about awkwardly watching his Master. Yet for all of his unassuming nature, the messenger _does_ have a sharp eye about him that has, throughout the centuries, learned to gauge when his input might prove to be helpful. Kylo watches Mitaka slowly shift his weight, a subtle way to gain his attention.

“Whatever it is you have to say, spit it out already,” says Kylo, popping a handful of pomegranate seeds in his mouth. Mitaka coughs to hide the nervous clearing of his throat at Kylo’s tone, having long seen what a bout of temper can become if accidentally fueled. 

“My Lord,” says Mitaka, stepping closer to the quiet water before him and then looking at Kylo nervously. “Have you thought perhaps to… investigate?” 

“Investigate?” 

“Her whereabouts, I mean, My Lord,” Mitaka points at the water with his empty hand, guiding Kylo’s eye towards it. “It would be… beneficial… perhaps, if it would put you at ease to know?”

This is the most Mitaka has ever dared _suggest_ before, at least where his Master’s personal affairs or desires have been involved. Kylo looks his messenger over, eyes narrowing slightly, and just when Mitaka starts fidgeting as though he’s realized his overstepping, he smiles. 

“An excellent idea,” Kylo says. 

“Truly?” Mitaka’s hope hitches his voice. 

Kylo points a finger at him, the light of Mitaka’s torch glinting off the black, razor sharp point of his fingernail. “Yes.” he says, a fire in his eyes that hadn’t been there a moment before. “You should go do that right now, Dopheld.”

To say the look crossing Mitaka’s face is one of horror would be an understatement. 

“M-my Lord,” he says, trying to find a way to temper the situation before it gets away from him. “W-what about my duties? Considering Lord Hux’s w-words—“ here he stutters at the look Kylo directs at him, the fire turning cold, and Mitaka changes gears. “I thought, p-perhaps, one of the hellhounds could do?”

“The hounds would take too long, they do not know her face as you do, nor her scent by which to trail her.”

“B-but—“

“Are you _that_ scared of Armitage?” Kylo asks, unable to keep the derision from his voice. To know that even Mitaka would try to question his directions because of that absolute bastard only grates. “You exist within my domain, under my protection.”

“Well— it’s just that…“

Kylo narrows his eyes. “Leave Hux to me. Now go.”

Mitaka, perhaps finally realizing that there is no way he could win this battle, simply nods his head in humble acquiesce and takes his leave. Kylo hears the soft sigh his servant makes as his steps fades, perhaps of relief, or perhaps of defeat, and chuckles nonetheless. For the first time in days he has something to look forward to, and not even Dopheld’s passive aggressive sighs would dampen that excitement. How had he not thought to investigate? Mitaka may be fidgety, but Kylo could never deny that for all of his mousy demeanor, some brilliance shone through every once in awhile.   
  


****

“And just _where_ do you think you’re going?”

Rey halts in her steps, shoulders hunching at the voice that carries down the halls like a cat caught dipping her whiskers into the milk. She turns around slowly, watching as the High Priestess she attends to walks towards her with a sort of feline grace Rey had often attempted to emulate but had never accomplished. Perhaps it’s because she doesn’t have the same sort of long, glossy black hair, a fitting crown which the Priestess wears proudly, or the same feminine curves Rey has never quite grown into. Or even those perfectly groomed eyebrows, so unlike Rey’s own wild, boyish ones. Those eyebrows now rise, one of them cocking higher than the other. Rey pastes on an innocent smile.

“Lady Tamera! I was going to the town,” she says quickly, giving her the same excuse she’d given Finn. “To deliver food and coin.”

Tamera narrows her eyes, as if only seeing the same troublesome youth she’d taken in so many years ago rather than the woman Rey had blossomed into. The High Priestess may be a beautiful woman, but behind the beauty there’s a honed shrewdness that speaks of years of having to watch after initiates like Rey herself and of knowing all the tricks in the books.

“During your own lunchtime?” Tamera asks.

“The needy are hungry, too,” Rey says perhaps a little too fast, but the corners of Lady Tamera’s lips threaten to quirk up for a second, appreciative of Rey’s wits, before the High Priestess schools her own features to blankness.

“Yes, they are, and that is very thoughtful of you. The Gods will surely bless you for your kindness,” Tamera moves closer, hands resting gently one atop the other in front of her. The High Priestess would never sink so low as to cross her arms or plant hands on her hips, but Rey knows the motion for what it is nonetheless. “Or at least that is what I would say, if another initiate hadn’t mentioned overhearing you and the healer boy at the market a few days ago.”

_Traitors._ Rey immediately starts backtracking in her mind, trying to think of who might have been around to rat her out.  As if reading her mind, Tamera smiles. 

“Do not fault your peers for their concern, Rey,” she says, moving forward to tuck a loose lock of wavy hair behind Rey’s ear and cupping her face in a motherly touch Rey had rarely been afforded. “They only look out for you. For all of us. Now, be frank with me— where have you been going during lunches?”

Rey swallows. She’s stuck between a rock and a hard place, now. If she lies, her High Priestess will know, and one does _not_ lie to a High Priestess. But if she tells the truth…

Rey opts for the middle ground instead.

“I _have_ been delivering food and coin,” she says, fingers wrapping around the small leather pouch at her waist and shaking it. The clinking of copper floats between them. “But I have also been visiting the temples.”

Tamera’s head tilts a single degree. “Have you, now? Without another priestess or initiate?” 

“I wished to visit them and reflect in solitude,” Rey says with a small nod, hoping her reason is sufficient. “The silence makes me feel more…” Here her words fail, but Lady Tamera smiles.

“Connected,” the High Priestess finishes for her with a small nod, and though the shrewdness in her eyes has not abated, its sharp edges have at least softened. “I often wished for the same as a youth. But remember, Rey, that reverence and fear of the gods — May they shine their Light upon us — must be weighed jointly, even for us. _Especially_ for us. And particularly for _some_ of these temples. Some gods are meant to be feared more than others. Do you understand my meaning?”

Rey swallows, trying not to panic. Out of the corner of her eye, a shadow quickly crosses her vision, a figure walking across an opposite hall in the cloisters, but in her distress, Rey dismisses it quickly. Surely Lady Tamera does not know? Surely not. She clears her throat, nodding rapidly and choosing to hide her expression by curtsying, an action she hates, in hopes that it’ll keep the woman from asking further questions. Satisfied, Tamera nods.

“Go, make your rounds. But return quickly, now. We must begin practicing for your rites, and the sooner the better. I also will need you in attendance at tonight’s offering. There’s been too little rain.” 

Rey’s chin bobs again when Rey nods even as she groans inwardly. There’s never enough rain, and the offerings could be exhausting, lasting well into the night, but at least she’s off the hook now. She mutters her request for a blessing, which Tamera gives by kissing her index and middle finger then pressing them to Rey’s forehead, then hightails it out of there before her guardian can change her mind.

So much for a lunch in cool solitude. Once out of sight, Rey lets out a sigh of relief, readjusting the strap of her sackcloth bag over her shoulders. She’d have to forgo her trip to the outskirts of town again.

_Well, might as well get this over with,_ Rey thinks wryly. _It’s going to be a very long night._  
  


****

“She’s at the cloisters of her city.”

Kylo blinks at Mitaka’s words. So his little mouse is actually a priestess? 

_But she doesn’t believe…_

Before he can finish that thought, Kylo lets out a barking laugh. Oh, the absurdity! The irony! She’s a _priestess!_ Who doesn’t even remotely believe in him. Oh, how beautiful.

It’s the first true, full belly laugh he’s let out in millennia, the first true laugh since well before he was turned into what he is now, and the foundations of the very mountain under which Kylo’s throne room resides quakes, the very essence of his realm connected to him, keeping it alive as much as the blood pumping through his veins do so for him.

Mitaka’s brows rise, but he lets out a relieved breath before continuing. “She’s been avoiding the temple for fear of being seen. From what I gathered of the superstitions, you’re not particularly…”

Kylo snorts before Mitaka can finish that sentence. That much he already guessed.

Kylo’s messenger and ferrier has seen many souls cross the borders between life and death, has shepherded many to Kylo’s presence, a coin in their mouths, but despite their many eons working together, bound to their stations and destiny by sheer fate, Mitaka remains as jumpy as ever. He jumps so now at the bouncing echo on the tail end of Kylo’s snort.

“Anything else?” Kylo asks.

Mitaka clears his throat.

“Yes…”

“Well?” Kylo asks, impatient. What else could there be regarding the girl? 

But it turns out, it’s not entirely all about the girl.

“Well, she will be at an offering tonight, from what I heard. For… rain…” Mitaka croaks, eyes darting towards the door as if the thought alone might summon a particular redheaded deity. Kylo’s temple twitches, the reminder of Hux’s warning ringing in his ears as his eyes fall on the empty pool at his feet. Would Hux haunt his every waking moment? Of course the one bright spot of sunshine in _his_ life would be busy offering _Hux_ something— another injustice in a long list of many by now. 

Then Kylo looks at Mitaka, weighing his options. “An offering, you say…” 

****  
  


“Are you ready?” Tamera asks, placing a hand on Rey’s shoulder as they stand behind the closed doors of the Sun God’s temple. 

The crowds outside can already be heard, the murmurs rising into the skies. The runner boys had been sent out yesterday to announce that there would be a ceremonial offering in hopes that Hux, god of the skies, would take pity on them and send rain. It was fabled that his eyes were made of thunderclouds and lightning adorned his hair, a cradle of life-giving water clouds around a similarly bright, life-giving sun. Rey could hardly imagine anybody with thunderclouds for eyes, and personally thought the whole thing silly, but she kept that thought tightly close to her chest.

She nods to the High Priestess, fidgeting with the thin golden chain looped around her hips, snugging her ceremonial white silks close to her body. The fabric is infinitely smoother than the more coarse fabric of her regular dresses, and infinitely clingier. It leaves her feeling exposed and oddly vulnerable, every curve, every dip accentuated against warm torch light. The scandalous drop at the front — the fabric pooling past her breastbone to hang inches above her belly button — doesn’t help matters much. She fidgets with the golden circlet resting against her forehead next, for which she earns a stern look from Tamera. 

“Stop that, you’ll mess it up,” Tamera says, readjusting it for Rey. The High Priestess had attempted to pull Rey’s hair out of her usual three-bunned style, something she had refused to give up even after entering initiation, but had had to compromise with allowing her to keep one atop her head. It now helped anchor the chains of her circlet, leaving the small yellow sapphire to dangle between her brows. _As bright as the sun, and as beautiful_. 

Rey’s one of two initiates helping with this ceremony tonight. The other apprentice, a svelte young girl a few years younger, stands to the side, equally as fidgety, though Rey assumes it has more to do with excited nerves over her first ceremony than Rey’s own desire to be anywhere but here. She gives her an encouraging smile, and her fellow initiate returns it weakly, her own circlet and gemstone gloriously bright against her russet skin. _Unsullied flowers to please the Sun God._

Rey suppresses her desire to snort, adjusting the golden filigree cuffs around her wrists next. In a few moments the doors would open, leaving them exposed to the gawking eyes of the thousands of townspeople congregated outside. Tamera gives her and the other apprentice one last appraising look before nodding her head to the two young boys holding onto the doors. They start pulling with all the strength their young arms can provide, swinging the massive ivory white, intricately carved doors open slowly to reveal them to the public eye.

Beyond the doors stand three pyres, with a few more scattered throughout the cobblestoned courtyard. Each Pyre has been doused with fat and oil, heaped with beds of sweet scented grasses and herbs, and all manners of fruits and vegetables dropped in by the citizens of Rey’s city as they crowd around them, their own small offerings freely and willingly given. 

Then she notes the heat. Even now, with the sun hidden over the horizon, she can feel the heat rising from where it remained trapped on the stones below her bare feet, the townspeople wearing as light a clothing as they can get away with. The very young children, those for whom modesty matters little, run around naked as the day they were born, little green wreaths in their hair and laughter in their voices as they try to sneak food away from the pyres before they’re set on fire, much to the chagrin of tired parents trying to chase after them. Rey smiles, unable to keep it in. Then it’s time to get the show started.

Tamera addresses the crowds. They answer as Tamera prompts, then the priestess herself walks towards the altar. Usually these offerings would only be of some sort of animal, but the lands had not seen any rain in months, and the city is starting to run low on water, so additionally the priestess offers a few drops of her blood - virginal and pure. Rey and her initiate companion step forward, offering the same, though from them only a single drop is required, a pinprick of their fingers. Rey tries her best not to hiss from the sharp sting of the knife to her pointer finger, then watches her drop fall atop an apple. What a waste of food. 

Tamera steps back, praying loudly to an empty sky as Rey and the other girl turn towards the temple with arms outstretched, and from behind her the heat of pyres going up in flames — first the one with their offering, then the heat of the rest — hits Rey’s shoulder blades. Rey dares look up towards the dark night skies. Cloudless and empty of stars.

_As if there’s anybody really paying attention_. 

Little does she know that there is.  
  


**** 

High above the skies sits a redheaded god, eyes narrowed slightly at the mirage before him, his eyes pinned on a familiar face. He’s seen that face. 

Hux tilts his head, fingers drumming on his throne as the little people of her world burn their offerings to him, though he’s too distracted to really take notice. So, this is the source of Ren’s sudden erratic behavior and never-ending distraction. 

He watches her as they go about their silly rituals, the glow of the fires behind her lighting her up, haloed as any beautiful creation under his skies, and Hux’s curiosity piques. What made _her_ so interesting to Ren, anyway? Perhaps he should watch a little longer, just to make sure. 

Then he senses more than sees as a gate opens behind the temple these humans have erected in his name, feels a tear forming in the dimensions of her world from which a cool breeze emanates. Hux watches it disturb the hot air of their world, a beckoning cold finger only this slip of a girl seems to feel. He watches as the hairs around the nape of her neck are disturbed when no other breeze moves her surroundings, watches as it caresses the high slashes on either sides of her skirt, caressing her tan, slender thighs; watches as her head turns in surprise, her brow furrows, and Hux can already tell who’s behind all of it. 

So, it seems Ren had chosen _not_ to listen to him after all. He sneers.

It doesn’t take much for the girl to be pulled away from her post, easily moving away unnoticed once her fellow citizens start dancing around fires, kneeling, praying, drinking, hoping beyond all hope that they have pleased him enough to send them much needed rain. Which he would be truly considering, if not for the fact that his attention has now been snatched elsewhere as Hux waves his hand and a new image appears before him, shimmering in the air, of Ren’s new found obsession slowly crawling into an opening disguised to look much like a cave mouth, ringed with glowing blue lights, lush green grasses, and a sweet cool breeze.

Curiosity killed the cat. As Hux leans forward on his throne, feeling more curious than he’s felt in a very, _very_ long time, he fears there may be more than a single cat involved in this game. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So very like Kylo to piss on Hux's parade ;p


	4. Chapter 4

The mouth of the cave she stares into is like nothing Rey’s ever seen in her life. Plush, green grasses roll ahead of her in a soft blanket as she takes one step in and blinks. A look behind her shows her that, yes, the Sun God’s temple is still behind her, the walls back-lit by a dozen pyres, the sounds of celebration now a hum to her ears. Rey looks once again at the cave, standing at its mouth. Either she’s hallucinating all this — did she drink too much wine before the ceremony? Inhale too much pyre smoke? — or she’s fallen asleep at her post and the High Priestess will wake her up at any moment now, yelling. It’s not like it hadn’t happened before. She’d fallen asleep standing plenty of times as a child. Rey can’t imagine how this place has come to exist, otherwise.

Or maybe it’d always been there, an entrance tucked behind the Sun God’s temple, and she just hadn’t been aware of it. It’s not like she’d bothered to ever go _behind_ it to check the rocky desert hills. But that cool breeze… there’s only one other place she knows where she can feel such a breeze. Rey squints, waiting for her vision to adjust to the darkness. It is a darkness unlike any she’s experienced before; not an absence of light so much as an active repelling of it, the dim, distant glow of the fires stopping suddenly at the edge of the cave’s mouth as if sheared off. She should turn around and leave right this instant, but…

Maybe it _really is_ a hallucination? She’s never seen anything this green before. The few patches at the cloisters are always a semi-brown, wilting yellow barely clinging onto life in the terraces, and only because the groundskeepers try so hard to keep them alive. What precious water the city uses for farming would never be wasted on such an extravagance outside of the cloister and palace walls, much less off in a secluded area like this, though she’s heard plenty of stories of rolling grassy hills to the north from traveling minstrels. Yet the the kind under her bare toes is soft, and slightly damp. Are the priestesses aware of this place?

Well, _her_ interest has certainly been piqued enough. And if it _is_ a dream, then it’s not like it’ll hurt anything.

She spares another glance at the Sun God’s temple before stepping in, the sensuous call of that cool breeze between her kneecaps too hard to resist, especially after having stood about in the scorching heat all day, and on those hot paving stones earlier. A relieved sigh escapes her the second both her feet are firmly planted inside, wiggling her toes into the cool, pillowy dampness of dew kissed grass. One more step finds her swallowed up in that perpetual darkness, and another step leaves her completely engulfed until she can hardly see her own limbs.

No, she can’t possibly be dreaming, and walking into unknown caves is a quick way to get killed by wild animals. 

The path before her gives way to a long, winding tunnel ahead, but it’s dark. So, so dark, though she spies an unearthly blueish green glow ahead that keeps drawing her eye. She should turn back. Curiosity had always gotten her in trouble, and Rey can still vaguely hear the clamor at the temple behind her. One look back, towards the pyre smoke signaling the safety of her home, is all it takes. She turns around, intent on leaving—

Another soft touch of cool air caresses her bare collarbones and she sighs. 

_That feels so good, though_.

Ah, what can it hurt? She hasn’t heard any animal noises yet, and she could afford a _few_ minutes. A few steps in. A small moment of respite. She snorts at herself and her inability to turn away from temptation even as she takes another step forward. Acknowledging her own stupidity isn’t enough to stop her feet from moving, and from wishing all the harder that she had a torch. Or a lamp. Or even one of those odd lightning bulb things Finn’s friend, Poe, had been tinkering with in his spare time, though they failed more often than not and seemed rather dangerous; Rey had some of her hair singed last time she tried to toy with one. Even one of those would be better than nothing in this darkness. She can only guide herself by that glow in the distance. That and an ever increasing sound. One that proves to be another temptation in itself: gurgling water not too far away. But every time she looks behind her she sees the way back home, and that in itself is a reassurance. She can take a peek. Just one peek then she can return. 

So she walks ahead, fingers splayed at her sides as she takes in lungful after lungful of blessedly clean air and lets her ears guide her, her winding path slowly widening the deeper she goes. Crystals protruding from the walls and above her head begin glowing with hints of blue, making it easier to see, and when she finally makes it to the main source of that unearthly blueish light, all the air she’d been greedily taking in comes out in a rushed gasp at what greets her. 

The glow she’d followed turns out to be thousands of crystals growing down from the high ceiling, littered across the roof like a million stars and pulsating as if attuned to some unseen heartbeat buried deep in a glacier, the light bouncing off the unnervingly smooth walls. The path she’d taken opens onto a massive field, the cave itself hollowing out into a cavern wide enough to fit the Sun God’s temple. No, not just one. Multiple temples. She turns to the nearest wall, reaching out gently to touch. It’s as cold as ice. It _is_ ice. That explains the cool breeze, sure, but how could there be ice buried this deep in the hills of a desert? 

Rey shakes her head against the fuzzy fog settling over her mind and stares ahead once more, unable to tear her eyes away. Oh, the ice walls and pulsing lights are beautiful, but nothing compared to the field of red and green stretching before her. Thousands upon thousands of red flowers swaying gently, their beauty preserved by the ice in which they dwell, the hint of a forest beyond them. Something in Rey’s brain tries to tell her that flowers couldn’t possibly survive here, encased in ice. Yet here they are, and they are so vibrant even in the pale blue light. So unnervingly red, their leaves so jarringly green, as if both emanated their own faint light. 

There is no sunlight here, so how are they so lush and bright and alive? 

And still they beckon.

She steps forward, following the grassy path, her ears still listening for animals, though all she can hear is a gurgling stream of water. Her eyes are still glued to the field stretching ahead, and so Rey fails to acknowledge that sensation in her head that tells her none of this makes sense, too wrapped up in her sensory overload to realize she’s being watched.

****

Kylo leans against a tree, his helmet of invisibility firmly on his head as he studies the girl from afar. She finally managed to make it to the mouth of the cave, though not without plenty of coaxing from him on the way, and for his efforts he’s rewarded with her first soft, tentative steps into the poppy field that stretches between them. He tilts his head at the way her fingers alight on the poppies, and smiles as her steps disturb the small, ancient little spirits that spring up into the air like a thousand fireflies. Her surprised squeak and subsequent shriek as she jumps back, loses her balance, then falls and nearly disappears from view drags a soft chuckle from him. She’s like a newborn lamb, and he’s having too much fun with this. 

So he steps closer like a shadow on the breeze, barely disturbing the grassy plane or the flowers growing from it, until he’s standing just a few feet away. Kylo crouches so he can study her where she lies spread-eagle, resting his elbows on his knees as the little priestess initiate looks up at the ceiling and, realizing no harm will come to her from her fall, throws her head back and laughs into the crushed poppies under her, creating a wreath around her beautiful hair, the small yellow sapphire between her brows glinting brightly. 

The first thing he really notices about her is how small she is. Perhaps not small for one of her kind, but certainly small in comparison to him. Were he to reach out he is sure his hands would all but swallow up her waist, his fingers easily envelop the long, slender fingers on her small hands. They are not _delicate_ hands - those hands have seen hard work - but they remain tiny in comparison to his own. Kylo’s head tilts the other way.

The second thing he notices is how very vibrant she is, as though a ray of sunlight itself had wandered into his realm. Her skin is warm, creamy smooth yet tinged with the sort of lively glow only creatures who dwell in the light could possess; so unlike his pale features, he who has not seen sunlight in so long. The smattering of freckles on her nose mimic constellations, yet they seem to him so much more welcoming. He nearly reaches out to touch the tip of her nose, to run a finger down the bridge of it and across her freckled cheek before thinking better of it, pulling back to watch as she lies there and rubs her eyes instead.

“What is this place, anyway?” she asks the empty air, and thus he notices a third thing about her.

Her voice is _lovely_. It is one thing to hear it echoing across his vast throne room. It is another entirely to hear it so close to his own ears, so intimately. Intimately enough, in fact, that he can hear her breathing. Alive. Bright. _Beautiful_. The exact antithesis of anything that exists within his realm. Oh, the field of dreams bordering her world, the field to which he’s lured her, is beautiful. But it is bound by some ancient magic even he cannot begin to comprehend, and it is certainly not _alive_ as she is alive. It’s unfair, how quickly he finds himself inexorably drawn to her, this little creature who does not even believe in his existence.

But he’s promised himself he’d only watch. He would watch, sate his curiosity, then return her to her world. That’s the plan.

Kylo remains quiet in his crouch, listening to her breathing and watching her as she stares with wonder at the receding cavern ceiling. 

“How beautiful,” she breathes out. He can’t help but agree, even if he’d be lying if he said he’s talking about the ceiling and not her. She sits up when a small glowing spirit lands on her, startled, then laughs, finally taking in the view. The whole field is alive now, spirits born of this realm flickering in and out, small little lights that lend the place the dream-like quality for which it is known. Another lands on her collarbone, and another even lower, and it takes a second for Kylo to truly clear his head when he finally looks away from her beautiful face to her body.

Her ceremonial dress clings to her skin, silky and airy, slippery with every moment, the expanses of smooth, naked skin flashing as the little mouse bends her legs and the fabric falls between them, exposing two long, lean thighs, toned calves and slender ankles; the soft rise and fall of her chest as she breathes, bringing his attention to her breastbone, to the peeking edges of perky breasts, the curve of defined collarbones and shallow dip of skin tantalizingly displayed before the view ends abruptly, her dress hiding her belly button and everything past it. His mouth waters. He breathes in deep, careful not to let the sound carry, annoyance rising at the realization that all of _this_ had been prepared for _Hux_. Hux and the stupid ceremony in his name. For the first time _ever_ , Kylo resents the fact that the people of her world fear him too much to offer the same. 

His train of thought is quickly cut off when she sits up with straining ears, head turning towards the sounds of the gurgling stream. She scrambles to her feet — her _bare_ feet — and slowly walks towards it, treading careful steps through the flower field. Kylo follows silently behind until he notices that she’s once again rubbing at her eyes, and the path she’s taking leads straight to the wide opening through which the stream flows. He watches curiously as she steps closer, but when she rubs at her eyes again and drops to her knees, about to cup a handful of water, Kylo panics.

Against his better judgement Kylo disengages his helmet, pulling it off his head and moving closer. She’ll be able to see him now, but that’s a price he’ll have to pay. This time he lets his steps be heard, though she hardly seems to notice. 

“I wouldn’t do that, if I were you,” he says, standing far enough away that she won’t feel cornered. Not that that seems to help anything when she screams, swivels, and holds wet hands to her chest and her throat. Her eyes scan the immediate area, and he realizes she’s looking for a weapon.

Kylo slowly bends at the waist and sets the helmet on the ground before sitting on it much like he’d crouched before. He purposely makes himself smaller then raises his hands, fingers splayed in a peace offering to show he’s unarmed, though his amusement hasn’t faded that she’s still looking for a weapon. As if a mortal with a stick could possibly hurt him.

“I mean no harm.” 

“Who are you?” she asks, now standing tall above him. Kylo refrains from pursing his lips. The last thing he’d wanted was to see her get defensive. So instead he makes a show of looking at the field around them, spreading his arms in a wide arc to encompass it.

“I’m the… groundskeeper,” he says. The girl frowns. “And you are?”

“I—“ she begins, then seems to think better of it. Her hands fall from her chest and neck to her skirts, clutching them closer. Not that Kylo notices. His eyes have fallen on the glint of wet skin at her neck, a sudden desire to lick it dry blooming in his chest. Once more he has to refrain from shaking his head or letting his thoughts show on his face. What’s happening to him?

“I—“ she repeats, “I’m no one.”

That manages to get his attention. He looks away from her neck to her eyes, and finally notices a fourth thing about her. Her eyes are beautiful. That small stone dangling between her brows can’t hold a candle to the warmth he finds in the depth her irises, even in this muted light. He gives her a small, amused smile.

“Well, Miss No One, how did you manage to end up here?” he asks, fully aware how she did it but unable to stop himself from teasing her. Anything to keep her talking.

“I— well, there was this cave…” she begins, “and I entered it. I thought there might be animals in there—“

“Animals?” he asks, and skies, if she’s not exactly as amusing in person as she’s been in his temple. “What did you imagine you’d find? Monsters?”

“Monsters?” she asks, head tilting sideways. Somehow between standing on a divine poppy field and talking to him about monsters, she seems to have forgotten that he appeared out of nowhere. Her brows furrow and she looks at him as if he’s stupid. 

“Monsters only exist in children’s stories. What kind of monsters do you speak of?”

“Wolves, perhaps?” he offers.

“Wolves?” she asks, this time with curiosity. “What are wolves?”

Kylo’s brows rise. _Interesting_. 

“Big, _scary_ dogs,” he says, and watches as a light goes off in her head. 

“Oh!” the little mouse says, shifting her weight on her feet and staring around her, as if looking for any signs of these _wolves_. “No, no there are no big scary dogs in that cave… are there any here?” 

Kylo stands slowly, stretching his limbs under him and regards her for a moment. She’s so innocent, this little girl, in her wispy clothes that barely manage to cover anything and her golden jewelry, petal soft and beautiful as anything he’s ever seen. No, she’s not a little mouse. She looks like she could belong in this field, amongst these poppies. 

“There are monsters and wolves everywhere, little flower.” _And I’m one of them._ He steps forward. Her head whips up, eyes sharpening on him, and he realises she’s readying to bolt, so instead of reaching out to tuck the strand of hair that keeps falling into her face behind her ears, Kylo holds out a hand instead, gesturing towards the river. “But back to my earlier warning. That water isn’t safe for you.”

And he’s not lying. The waters of this particular river would put her to sleep with just a few drops, sending her into a deep slumber amongst the poppies. A few more drops would make her dream so vividly, sleep so soundly, that she’d need divine assistance to wake up. If she were to drink the handful she’d cupped, she would forget everything she is and everything she’s known.

She looks at him then her eyes fall on the water. “Why?” she asks. “It looks fine to me.”

“I can find you some that is safe to drink, if you’d like,” he offers. 

That offer seems to snap her out of her complacence as she finally turns to look at him and narrows her eyes, this time with suspicion. Her eyes fall on his impeccably pressed long tunic, on his leather gloves devoid of a single speck of dirt, on the long cloak and its silver clasps pinned close to his lapels, the silver chain connecting them glinting bright. She follows the hem of his fitted trousers down to his perfectly shined boots. 

“You said you’re a groundskeeper?” 

He obviously looks nothing like one.

“Yes.”

“Where am I?”

Kylo smiles, a small cryptic thing before he tilts his head towards the entrance of the cavern, now that much farther away from where it had previously been. She looks at it. Obviously she’s coming to the same realization.

“I take it you got lost and wandered in here?” a total lie. He’d lured her here. Short of kidnapping her in front of a town full of people, there was no other way, really. Not that he would have minded doing so, really. Kylo had wanted to see her so very badly. 

“I—“ she clears her throat, her thought processes practically transparent. If she were to say otherwise, he might take it as willing trespassing, and no _groundskeeper_ is ever happy to deal with trespassers. So instead she turns to him and gives him a bright, blinding smile, one that looks a little hesitant and even more remorseful, though he doubts there is truly any of either in it. Kylo nearly chuckles at her attempt to ingratiate herself into his good graces.

“I did. I’m sorry. I got lost, and once I stepped here I quickly became distracted. Your grounds are breathtaking. If I may be so bold... would you be able to help me find my way back, or point me in the right direction?” she asks, trying to get herself out of a potentially sticky situation, and did she just _bat_ her eyelashes at him? Oh, but she’s so, so very amusing. The little flower is not so unassumingly soft as she seems. Intriguing. He wonders where she learned that trick.

“It would be my pleasure, but there’s one thing I’d like as payment for my help.”

“What’s that?” her shoulders tense, and Kylo almost smiles again. So twitchy. So ready to fight.

“Your name.”

“My name?”

“Yes, Miss _No One_. I’d like to know your name, as I do with all my… guests.” 

She has the decency to flush, and this time he does chuckle. She avoids looking at him, lower lip caught between her teeth before she breathes in deeply and lets her shoulders slump.

“Oh, alright. My name is Rey.”

“Rey,” he says, savoring the name. So simple. A single syllable. It suits her. Kylo stands to his full height, towering over her as he once again extends his hand out. “Let’s take you home.”

Rey lifts her hand, about to take his. Then hesitates, and Kylo’s brows are already stitching into a frown when she looks at him and her blush deepens. She clears her throat and rocks back on her heels, hand still frozen in the air, but whatever it is she wants to say doesn’t seem to be able to come out of her mouth, so he gently urges her on.

“Is something the matter?”

“No,” she says, then looks about at the field around her. “I was just wondering… would it be possible if I—“

“Yes?”

Rey points towards the poppies. “Could I possibly take a few?” she asks, then her words start falling out of her in a breathless rush, “It’s just that I’ve never seen flowers. Certainly not this beautiful, and there are so many, surely I could take a few? I’d love to keep them, even if they won’t last very long where I live, it’s so hot, you see… but…”

Kylo blinks, then he throws his head back and laughs. Of all the things she could say, all the things she could request from him, all she wants are flowers? Granted, she doesn’t _know_ who he is, but that alone endears her to him in a way nothing else could.

“Take as many as you’d like, they’re yours,” he says, and Rey’s smile is payment enough for this whole field of poppies, should she choose to take them all with her. 

“Thank you.”

He lowers his hand and watches as she goes about looking at them individually, carefully selecting the ones she wants. They all look exactly the same to him, if he were honest, but perhaps he doesn’t have the same sort of appreciation for the things. They’re practically weeds to him, born of magic and divine power, frozen in time and unable to remain alive without him. But he watches her nonetheless, even when she hisses and a drop of blood drip from her finger onto the ground. 

“Are you hurt?” he steps closer, peering over her shoulder. Rey sucks at her finger.

“No, it’s just…a small cut from earlier,” says Rey, sucking at her fingertip and clutching onto three poppies in her other hand. “From a ceremony. It’s nothing. Let’s go.”

And so he guides her slowly out of the field, matching his step to hers, then out through the cave. Summoning a flame would make this much easier for her, but he figures she might spook if suddenly a blue flame were born from nothing, so instead he gently coaxes her hand into his, guiding her forward in the growing darkness until they’re standing at the mouth of the cave again, facing her desert. Kylo steps behind her, urging her forward with an outstretched hand, his other on her shoulder, and Rey lets out a sigh of relief when sunlight hits her face. Then she tenses, shoulder muscles tightening under his grip.

“It’s daytime?” she asks.

Ah. Right. Time in her world flows differently.

Kylo sighs, knowing what he must do. Before she can say or do anything else, he gently places a hand on the side of her head, burying his gloved fingers in her hair, and sends a tendril of his power into her.

“Sleep, little flower,” he murmurs with a small smile as her body starts going limp. Kylo collects her in his arms immediately. She must believe this a dream, and he must deliver her home. “It was all just a dream.”

He looks at the temple ahead. Irritation once again curls in the back of his throat.

No. He would not deliver her there. If he had it his way, she would never step foot in it again in a million years. Kylo refuses to share _her_ with anyone else, least of all Hux, however irrational his sudden fixation has become, and however petty his reasoning. So instead he disappears in a puff of black winter smoke with a sleeping Rey in his arms, closing the rip in space that led to the cave of dreams, and opening up another one in a familiar temple. _His_ temple. She could sleep here, wake here, come back to herself here. He’d let her sleep as long as she wanted. In peace. Where he knows she’ll be safe.

He sets her gently on the floor at the feet of the statue, warming the room enough that she’ll be able to sleep comfortably. Here she once again looks like a little mouse, but it’s hard now not to notice how breathtaking she is. No, she’s much more than a little mouse. With a small amount of regret, he collects her flowers to take back with him. If only he could leave them behind.

She should come-to, soon. After a few more moments of watching her breathe, he chuckles and disappears again, his words reverberating in the very stones.

“Sleep well, little flower.”

He steps back into the poppy field to retrieve his helmet, already thinking wistfully about that precious hour she’d spent here as he spots it and bends at the waist to retrieve it, only to stop as something bright and white flashes in his peripheral vision. Kylo stills, turning his head, and there — right where Rey had stood before, right where a drop of her blood had fallen — sways a single daisy. He studies it from where he stands for a moment before reaching to gently touch its paper thin, delicate petals. 

_Interesting._

****

The cave winks back into existence and Kylo appears at the opening he’d made for the girl to walk through. Hux watches as Kylo puts her to sleep, as he regards the temple before him, then promptly disappears with the girl still safely cradled in his arms. He watches, and waits, but when Kylo does not return, his eyes narrow further. First it had been simple curiosity, but now… now he’s _far_ too suspicious to look away. 

“What are you _up to_ , Ren?”

****

Rey wakes up with a crick in her neck, sore shoulders, and feels like she’s never slept this well before despite the pain. She stretches her limbs, wincing at the sting, then forces her neck to mobility as she looks about her, trying to figure out where she is. 

Cool air greets her. Cool air and dust.

Rey looks up at the star painted dome she’s come to know so well, then behind her at the giant statue of the old man and blinks. When had she made it back here? Last she remembers, she’d been at the Sun temple, arms raised to the skies, praying for rain. Well, faking to do so. 

She looks down at her clothes. Her ceremonial clothes. Rey shakes her head, trying to clear the fog that is still firmly settled over her thoughts, trying to recall the previous night, but all she can think of is a red field and a glowing ceiling. Her eyes travel back up to the dome. A star-littered ceiling, much like this one.

She gets up,dusting her knees as she turns a slow circle on the spot, but there’s nothing there, no hint at all. How did she end up here? Whenever she tries to think about it, her brain hurts, as if trying to keep her from looking too deeply into it. So instead she walks slowly out of the temple and heads towards town, deciding to put her strange night and even stranger dreams behind her. Maybe she could talk to Finn about it. Talking with him usually helped her sort her thoughts. Yes, she would do exactly that. 

And everything is as it should be, really… except people are now starting to stare.

Perhaps it’s because of her clothes, what with them being far more revealing than anything she’s ever worn, but that proves to be incorrect because nobody seems to be looking at her _clothes_. They’re all looking at her face as though she has something painted on it, or now has some sort of disfigurement. Rey touches her cheeks gingerly, but everything feels like it’s still in place.

So that’s not it, either. Which becomes painfully clear because the longer she looks at them, the more she registers a wariness and surprise that had never been there before whenever she walked amongst the townspeople. A certain _fear_. 

Soon enough there are whispers, and Rey’s skin is starting to crawl, but nothing would ever make her skin crawl more than the blood curdling scream a minute later when she walks into the rather crowded town square only to be met with the terrified expression of her fellow initiate, the girl she’d held the ceremony with along with her high priestess, who is now pointing at her with a shaky finger and horror in her eyes.

“ _You!_ You’re supposed to be dead! I saw you disappear!” 

Rey stares. 

Yes. It had been _fear_ she’d noticed. And now she sees it clearly on everyone’s faces, but no more so as on the features of her fellow initiate, who clutches onto her white skirts and shakes visibly in the non-existent breeze.

“Spectre!” the girl whimpers, and the whispers around Rey intensify. “You’re not supposed to be here!”

And then Rey makes a severe mistake. She opens her mouth. 

“What are you talking about? I’m perfectly alive.”

Everyone gasps, and the girl’s eyes get watery with panic. She moves forward, clutching at Rey’s arms, shoulders, and face, as if checking the validity of Rey’s statement. Then the young girl steps back, and if her russet skin could pale, Rey imagines it would be doing so right about now.

“What have you done? You’ll make him _mad!”_

****

Hours later Rey’s being forcefully shoved back into Ren’s temple. She had practically been assaulted by half the townspeople, tied up like meat to market and manhandled into a jail cart to keep her from escaping, before being dragged to the cloisters to be presented to the High Priestess. Lady Tamera had stared at her with both awe and terror, all the while listening to the chants of an angry town screaming that Rey had angered Ren, the God of Death, by having escaped his grasp, and that she should be sacrificed lest she bring his ire upon their unsuspecting town.

Apparently her _fellow_ initiate had seen her… disappear? Into thin air? Through some _hole_? Or some other ridiculous story, but as far as Rey can gather now from the snippets of hysterical screaming she can piece together, she’d been missing for days. Everyone had searched, including said hysterical apprentice. They had turned every stone, looked everywhere, and found no trace of her. So she’d been declared _claimed_ , and officially dead. An honor, Lady Tamera had said, unfortunate, but an honor nonetheless.

Only, Rey had shown up unscathed and very much alive. Not only that, but she’d been _seen_ coming out of Ren’s temple. A temple she hadn’t been seen _entering_. 

_Nobody escapes Death_ , Lady Tamera had said with such sadness Rey wanted to weep. Was she going to end up getting _killed_? For what, _sleep-walking to a temple_? But no, instead of being killed, Lady Tamera had kept her restrained and then proceeded to dress her up — or rather, _down_ — and to cover her in jewels that did more covering than the sad excuse for clothes did, announcing that Rey would indeed be given as an offering. She’d reasoned from the balcony, however, that to _truly_ sacrifice a fair maiden priestess would be a waste, and might just anger the god of Death _more_ if he were not the one decide her fate, to claim her.

And so claim her he _would_ , Rey just never imagined that their idea of claiming would be to offer her up on a silver platter as a _bride_. She’d been bundled up yet again like meat to market, indeed. Just not the kind to be sold for consumption.

Or maybe _exactly_ like the kind sold for consumption. Divine consumption.  

She hears the heavy doors as they slam shut behind her with resounding, deafening finality while she’s getting to her feet. Then there’s the slam of a giant beam of wood falling into place from outside. She throws herself at those doors, feeling the cold draft kissing her _very_ naked body where the sheer fabric of the three threads they’d given her for clothes fail to cover her, and shouts with all the anger she never knew she’d harbored, banging her jeweled arms against the unyielding doors. 

_“LET ME OUT_!”

Her High Priestess had kissed her cheeks, tears in her eyes, and told her how much she regretted this. Rey had screamed then, too, and kicked, and clawed and bitten at anyone who tried to drag her away, because _what sort of nonsense was this_? But nobody had listened. No, her purpose now was to appease Death and keep the town safe from his vengeful wrath by paying for her misdeeds. 

And so she’d been locked up in a now _very_ clean temple, the banners replaced and the floors polished to a high shine; tables stacked along the walls piled high with food. As much food as had been offered to the Sun God for rain. _More bribery_ , her brain supplies, though she refuses to stop yelling for somebody to let her out, and _praying_ that if this stupid God of Death exists that he wouldn’t show his face because she’s so angry she could just _very_ easily steal his title by murdering him and all the people outside this temple for their stupidity. What do they think she is? Cattle?! 

That plan solidifies when the music starts.

_Music_.

They’re _celebrating_. To _appease_ him!

The absolute _hypocrites!_

Oh, but she could scream.

And scream she does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FIRST, a giant THANK YOU for the 500+ kudos. Damn, you people sure know how to show a girl your love <3 thank you so, so much for how excited you're all about this story and getting it to 500 kudos and 300+ comments on 3 chapters alone. I love you. Seriously.
> 
> Second, a HUGE thanks to the ever lovely and immensely talented @a1army (on tumblr) for the MINDBLOWINGLY AMAZING ART OF KYLO'S TEMPLE AND THRONEROOM. Holy shit. It's so beautiful. Thank you, bb. [You guys can check out more of her art here](http://a1army.tumblr.com).
> 
> 1\. [The Throneroom](https://lucidlucy.tumblr.com/post/162453803530/a1army-in-another-realm-far-far-away-alright)  
> 2\. [The Temple](https://lucidlucy.tumblr.com/post/162284833135/lucidlucy-a1army-lucidlucy-3-i-did-my-best)  
> 3\. [Priestess & Lord Death](https://lucidlucy.tumblr.com/post/162256419140/aegis-in-this-world-or-any-other-a-reylo)  
> 4\. [Rey's return from the underworld](https://lucidlucy.tumblr.com/post/162561500060/aegis-in-this-world-or-any-other-sleep-little).
> 
> And lastly, I hope you all enjoyed this chapter!
> 
> Allusions here have been made to The Cave of Dreams through which the river Lethe flows, and Hades's Cap of Invisibility (or helmet, depending on who you ask). I've obviously taken my liberties with both ;p


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy "Lucasfilm has watered our crops with a Behind The Scenes for TLJ" day. ;) 
> 
> Thank you all for the support the last chapter <3 I am so glad you're all loving it so much! I'll be answering comments slowly, but keep 'em coming!

 

  


They left her here to die.

Rey groans as she slides down the temple doors, letting that realization sink in fully. She must have been screaming for hours now, and all she’s gained for her efforts are a sore throat and throbbing hands from banging her fists against the heavy wooden doors. 

_Deep breaths, Rey_. _Someone will hear you._

Attempting to breathe only makes her throat itch, the effort wasted when she’s forced to cough on the exhale. She sighs, rubbing at her eyes. It must be late—well into the early hours of morning, even—and yet the sounds of revelry outside the temple have not subsided. People are _out there_ and yet nobody has dared help in the face of her insistent screaming. Or maybe they can’t hear her over the deafening drums. Or maybe they just don’t _care_. In which case she’s stuck here and they’ve left her to die of exposure or starvation, whichever one comes first.

She looks up from the cradle of her hands, taking in her tomb anew: the impossibly tall pillars, the mirror shine of the marble floor; the black, heavy banners emblazoned with the crescent of a waxing moon; the curved dome she’d so very often admired, the tables piled with food for offering and, finally, the source of her grief. The _Old Man_ ’s statue. 

Rey scrambles to her feet. The marble is freezing against her bare toes but she stomps on ahead anyway, the small chained gold coins decorating her ankles clinking and dancing with every violent step as her ire climbs. 

“This is _your_ fault.” She jabs a finger in the air in Death’s direction and tries not to shiver at the cold draft swaying her skirts. “I’m going to die here, and it’s your fault.”

Rey climbs the steps up to the statue, hands fisted and ready to kick at the Death God’s toes before she remembers he’s made of stone and she very much isn’t, the thought stealing her thunder like a candle winking out. No, her anger is better directed elsewhere.

Back to the doors it is. She takes a deep breath, spares one last moment of considerable regret for the state of her throat come morning, and gets ready to start yelling again, determined that if she must suffer through this she would not be suffering alone. All those hypocrites outside would be subjected to her protests and demands for release all night, if need be, or at least until somebody takes pity on her. Gods above, she hopes _somebody_ will take pity on her.

Except what God would listen? She can’t help but snort. If they existed she wouldn’t be stuck in this mess to begin with. At least one of _them_ would be able to let her out and she wouldn’t have to lower herself to practically begging, for once the townsfolk leave, so does all her hope. Nobody else will come out this way once the celebrations end. Rey throws one last resentful look at the statue before shouting for help again.

****

“My Lord,” Dopheld’s thin voice greets Kylo as he enters the throne room, helmet under his arm and the daisy petal he’d plucked held between thumb and forefinger. 

Mitaka shifts, bony fingers holding onto his oar in a bruising grip. 

_What now?_

Dopheld clears his throat, clearly uncomfortable to be the bearer of bad news, if the high pitch of his words is any indication.

“My Lord,” Mitaka points at the water pool. “We may have a bit of a situation, sir.”

“What is it?” he asks, moving closer. Mitaka shifts his weight again. 

“Well, you see, Lord Ren, I was…” his messenger swallows, “When you left, I took the liberty of keeping an eye on— on things while you were gone, as it w-were,” he stutters, perhaps afraid of what his master’s reaction might be to the admission that he had been _snooping_ , but gives Kylo very little time to focus on it when he rushes through the rest of his news. “And it seems the girl has been t-taken, s-sir.”

Kylo stops dead in his tracks. 

“What do you mean _taken_?” He can already feel his blood simmering with an irrational sense of anger and urgency, “ _Who_ took her?” 

Poor Mitaka looks like he’d rather have the River of the Dead swallow him whole than have to stand there telling his story, but he manages to gather some courage from somewhere, because he continues, “she was walking into her town when she was taken by a mob. I tracked them long enough to find out she’s been taken as an… offering to—“

Kylo’s vision blurs red at the word _offering_. There’s only one person that stupid town of hers ever gives offerings to regularly. He disappears in a hurricane of tar black smoke, leaving a gaping Mitaka and the echoes of his angry growl behind. 

****

An animalistic roar thunders in from outside, making the very stones beneath Hux’s feet quake as he looks up. He draws himself to his full height, the only tell of his surprise a slow blink before he quickly collects himself in the face of Kylo Ren stampeding into his throne room, Death’s personification himself trailed by a darkness so deep it consumes and negates every bit of air and light that dares surround it, a swirling tendriling mass about him like live appendages _waiting_ for something to strike at. 

“ _HUX!_ ”

Not _something_ , then. Seems like _he_ is the intended target this time. Hux cocks an eyebrow, promptly waving away the gaggle of lesser deities towards the walls to make room as Kylo’s darkness starts consuming the very air from the room, the temperature quickly plummeting with every one of Ren’s steps.

_Well this should be fun_ , Hux thinks wryly. 

“To what do I owe the pleasure of your rare company, Ren?” he asks, the clip of his words betraying the very courtesy he extends. 

“Where is she?” 

“Where’s who?”

“You know exactly who, Armitage.” Kylo steps forward, eyes narrowed yet wild, giving Hux the impression that his counterpart is not necessarily seeing _him_. “Where are you keeping her?”

“I really have no idea what you’re referring to” he says truthfully, forcing himself to stillness in his seat. He has seen Ren’s fits of fury before, and he would not poke the beast without knowing what he’s getting himself into. “But I have a feeling you’re about to enlighten me.”

“The _girl._ I know she’s been offered to you,” Kylo continues, but this time his voice has lowered to a dangerous drawl. Without meaning to, Hux tilts his head, eyes narrowing ever so slightly. The _girl_ has him this wound up? “ _Where_ are you keeping her?”

He picks off a piece of imaginary lint from his stark white robes in order to gain the few precious seconds he needs to process Ren’s statement. He finally looks up when Ren lets out an impatient growl.

“I do hate repeating myself, but I really must insist upon my first remark. I have no idea what you’re referring to.“ Hux looks around his own throne, then waves about it with bored amusement on his face even as the gears in his head start whirring. What is this nonsense about an offering? “Do you see her here?”

“I swear, Hux—“

A whisper rises from the spectators. Behind him, Phasma - his messenger and leader of his armies - shifts. Hux tenses, letting his coppery lashes draw nearer as he regards Ren with a flinty gaze. What little humor his voice held immediately dissipates. “Careful about making threats, Ren. We have been down this path before.”

Those around them try to make themselves smaller, the very air crackling with bone-splitting tension as Ren and Hux stare each other down for a long moment. A moment which Hux takes to study his unexpected guest, unable to recall anything powerful enough to draw Ren’s ire in thousands of years, much less draw him in the flesh to the surface, what with his propensity for darkness and perpetual solitude. A propensity which seems to have been wildly altered recently. What could this mortal possibly hold in her person that it would shift Ren’s behavior so dramatically in such a short period of time? 

“I have no interest in this girl you speak of,” Hux lies to both Ren and himself, “but you’re welcome to search the grounds, if you’d like. Though you’ll be sorely disappointed, I assure you.”

Ren stares at him, as if deciding whether Hux is lying or not. He sits back, brows climbing higher while staring back at Kylo Ren, refusing to sever eye contact. Everybody else in the throne room stays silent. They make themselves smaller yet, trying to fuse with the white marble pillars and silver decor. It could get very ugly very quickly, and no one wants to be caught in the middle of that storm.

Another tense moment and Kylo disappears in the same angry thunder in which he had shown up, taking with him the freezing temperatures and the ever-present darkness. Hux’s left eye twitches as he tries not to squint in the sudden light. The people in his court let out a collective sigh of relief, one he almost mimics just as he hears Phasma shift behind him again. 

“What girl?” Phasma whispers, turning her body away from prying eyes. 

Hux drums his fingers on his crossed knees, running the thumb of his other hand over his lower lip, his mind suddenly _busy_. It is such a thrilling thing to suddenly feel _busy_ , his thoughts skittering past and reassembling themselves as quickly as the lightning running through his veins, puzzle pieces begging to fall into place. 

“A human,” he says, “Ren’s sudden obsession, it seems.”

Phasma lets out an amused snort. “What could possibly be so interesting about a human?”

A good question, that one.

“I could hardly say.” _For now_. He lets out a long suffering sigh then waves his hand at Phasma, showing her the girl’s rust-red, dusty covered town. “Go, find out what all this noise is about.”

****

In hindsight, Kylo should have listened to Mitaka’s full statement before storming out of his throne and instigating a potential fight with Hux, one which Mitaka was quick to remind him would definitely take place if he resorted to his second idea— which was to pay that little _town_ of hers a visit, given that it’s Hux’s territory. A sick sense of relief rushed through him the moment he’d been informed that she was safely back in the temple, his anger quickly replaced with amusement.

She’d been offered to _him_? Whatever could have prompted that? His curiosity all but overshadowed any thoughts he’d had about skirmishes with Hux.  He could deal with Hux later.

So once more he’d vanished in thin air, leaving behind a resigned Mitaka looking abysmally tired, only to appear in the temple in which his little priestess initiate now resided, hands still on the sides of his helmet from putting it on—

“This is _your_ fault!” she’d seethed as she pointed straight at him, fire in her eyes and an impressive scowl on her face, unaware of him standing there. “I’m going to die here, and it’s your fault.”

That had been an hour ago, and approaching her after that display of anger seemed like a _really_ bad idea.

Which is how he finds himself now perched on the arm of the marble statue, staring down at her as she paces in a tight circle at his feet and mutters red-hot curses at nothing in particular, though sometimes she turns them on him. Or rather, the statue of him.

Like now.

“—And of course, of course they had to dump me in here,” she spits out, her pacing picking up speed, “to die. And do you know why?” she asks, rounding on the statue and staring at it with her hands on her fists, looking very much like she has a particular bone to pick with him — _it —_ and giving the statue no option about listening to her, inanimate object or not. “I’ll tell you why, because they think you ugly lump of rock will get mad at them!”

Kylo’s brows rise, feeling mildly insulted at being called an ugly lump of rock. He leans back, one elbow resting on his knee and his other leg dangling over the side while Rey continues her rant. 

“Mad because I woke up here!” she grumbles, glaring up at the statue. “And so you see how this is all your fault? I mean, yes, some of it is mine—I should have never continued visiting you to begin with, look where it’s gotten me—but it’s also your fault. Know why?” 

Kylo arches an eyebrow and bites on his lower lip, knowing she’s about to let him know fully why.

“Because you exist!” she screeches up, tiny fists balled up at her side with whatever’s left of her annoyance, then, because it’s been hours now, her shoulders deflate and Rey throws her head back, closing her eyes in exhaustion. “Or really, because you _don’t_ exist, but _they_ seem to think otherwise,” she points at the doors, “and the music outside has stopped. Do you know what that means? It means there’s probably nobody left who can let me out, old man.” 

And then she starts laughing. 

“I’m going to probably die in here because gods - _you_ \- forbid that they give me proper clothes,” she motions to her body, head to toe, and Kylo licks his lips instinctively, trying his best not to make a sound in the back of his throat while staring at the curves of her body insinuated to his eyes through the sheer snowy white gossamer and lace of her dress, similar in cut to the one she wore that very morning. He can’t make out the details from his perch, but he sees enough. She rubs her arms furiously. “Or a bloody blanket. Why is it so blasted cold here?”

Kylo considers, head tilting to the side. He could show himself to her, offer to help—

“Your fault, old man! You hear me?! Light, I must be going crazy. Ok, one more time,” she huffs before walking away towards the doors again to resume her futile call for help. 

_Hm, no. Not yet._  

He’s not afraid of a mortal’s ire, or her response to him in said ire. He’s not. Waiting her out is just the most logical choice. He could always make her pliant with his own power, but where’s the fun in that?

Kylo swallows the chuckle that had formed in his chest and waves his hands, conspicuously urging the torches to give more heat, gradually increasing the temperature until she stops shivering. When the first few rays of light start streaming in from the high up windows and the small holes in the star littered dome, that’s when she finally looks up and gives up the fight. 

Maybe she’s finally calmed down. Maybe he could approach her now—

Rey hangs her head for a moment before looking up and letting out a blood curdling scream of fury, the last one she has in her, before collapsing on the steps and hugging her knees. 

_No_ , approaching now would be a _terrible_ idea. But he can’t help himself. He drops from the arm of the statue, fashioning himself two sets of raven wings out of smoke on the way down until he comes to a light landing a few feet away from her, crouching at the foot of the steps so he can look up at her. Rey lets out a soft sniff, rubbing at her eyes, and for the first time in his long life Kylo feels a heartstring tug somewhere deep within the cage of his ribs. 

He wants to reach out. His body calls for him to do so, and he very nearly gives into it but then she wipes her eyes dry and takes on a hard expression.

“Alright, Rey, no pitying yourself,” she says, nodding to the empty air to reinforce her resolution. “You have to survive now.”

Kylo’s head tilts again, a small smile tugging at his lips. Who knew his little flower could be so determined? Not that he’d leave her alone stuck in here, no matter how silent his vigil over her, but it pleases him greatly that she thinks first of survival. That skill would serve her well. So he leans back into his crouch and watches her walk about the room, taking stock of everything she has at her disposal.

First she approaches the food. Kylo tracks her as she moves from one table to the other, looking at the spread of breads and cheeses, fruits and ales. She mumbles to herself as she goes, cataloguing what must be eaten first, and he almost laughs at the way she scoffs at _all this_ _waste for a stupid statue_ , and mumbles on about not quite trusting the water. He watches her pop olives and grapes and strawberries into her mouth, letting out sounds that quickly travel from his ears down to his crotch, then sits back as Rey grabs a giant pitcher of honey wine and brings it back to the statue with her. She sets it on the floor then looks up towards the ceiling, towards the banners.

“Now, how to get one of those things down,” Rey mutters. Kylo tries to pay attention - he _really_ does - but it’s hard to do so when her small breasts are swaying in front of him as she moves about, looking for a way up. 

Part of him knows he should help. The other part of him is stuck staring at her barely covered behind bouncing every time she tries to hop up on top of the statue’s toe. He shakes his head, trying to clear it, and sends a cushion of air right underneath her rear to help her up. Rey looks startled for a second only to shift her focus back to her task, trying to climb up the statue’s leg, so once again he helps, though only just enough that she doesn’t notice, his amusement climbing with every little annoyed huff of hers as her fingers graze a banner hanging just to the side. By the time she’s on the thing’s lap and looking for a way to get a hold of it, he’s two breaths shy of breaking out into laughter. 

A swish of his hand and the banner falls into her hands the second she tugs on it. Rey looks immensely satisfied, slowly clambering off the statue and trying not to break an ankle while doing it.

“There!” she says, spreading out the newly pilfered banner on the floor and folding it to create a cushion, then wanders over to the food tables, grabbing as much as she can in her slender arms before plopping down on her makeshift bed with her bounty. “If I must die, I will at least die with a full belly.”

He shakes his head.

She’s safe, at least, and no harm will come to her under his watch. Now to figure out a way to interact with her. It feels like trying to lure in a scared, cornered hellcat. It _could_ come to him, or it could attack him. When she finally gorges herself on fruit and bread and falls asleep on the banner, he makes himself comfortable, warming up the room just a few more degrees to regulate the temperature for her as he settles in for a long night. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We have been blessed with gifts! The first one is from @the-one-in-the-middle on Tumblr, a gorgeous drawing of Kylo in his temple from Chapter 1 & 2\. [You can see it here.](https://lucidlucy.tumblr.com/post/162834216500/the-lovely-the-one-in-the-middle-made-this-for)
> 
>  **[The second is a podfic!](https://soundcloud.com/user-661854610/sets/lucidlucys-aegis-in-this-world)** My lovely @jennity-blogs (on Tumblr) has recorded the first chapter of Aegis in the most angelic voice in the universe. These are a personal ongoing project of hers - where she records some of her favorite fics - and she's also recorded other stories. Go check them out.
> 
> Don't worry, next chapter there'll be interaction ;p unfortunately for these two, getting a god and a human to talk can be... tricky. Especially when one of them is so thoroughly pissed off and doesn't believe in the other.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And I'm back! thank you guys for all the love the last 5 chapters, and sorry it took so long. This chapter's been written for a while but I was down with health issues for a week and a half, and prior to that I was on a smol internet break, so it's taken longer than I expected. However, I hope you like this one! I'll be answering all your comments in the coming days, but wanted to know how much I've loved each and every one of them comments and kudos in my inbox. Thank you!
> 
> (I'm very tired and this chapter might need further proofing later but lmao here you go babies, enjoy). Onward.

It is the second day when Kylo finally manages to get close enough. The first day he’d spent watching, helping her from the shadows and waiting out her fury as she paced, and fumed, and generally shouted at the giant marble statue about how it was all his fault that she was in this particularly precarious situation.

Yet despite the rants and the evil eyes stabbed murderously his way, Kylo finds himself attracted to her with every ticking, passing second he spends inside the dim, empty temple with her. He can’t help himself. Everything she does is a breath of fresh air for somebody who hasn’t seen this level of fervor and energy from anyone in _centuries_. After all, he deals with the dead, not the living.

His eyes track her as Rey takes another circuit around the chamber, eyes full of pent up energy and a longing for the outside as she searches for any and all means of escape. She’d been visited a few hours ago by somebody — a boy child by the name of Finn — and spent a few minutes seated against the wooden doors talking with her friend, looking more and more defeated by the fact that this Finn character couldn’t shift the heavy wooden beam blocking her passage to freedom. She’d seemed so defeated then. So lonely. Rey had not allowed Finn to leave without a promise that he would come back to talk to her, at least.

That’s when Kylo had concocted a plan, and now he simply waits for her to exhaust her seemingly endless well of annoyance before putting it into motion.

So he watches, carefully warming the marble floors under her bare feet as Rey paces idly up and down the temple floor, weaving between the pillars for something to do when she’s not eyeing the high windows with interest— or maybe trying to find a way to scale the rather slick walls to reach them. He wouldn’t put it past her, really. Having watched her for two days had given him a new appreciation for mortals and their ability to innovate when backed into a corner. Rey had certainly proven to be cleverer than most.

Rey finally ambles back to the statue, walking right by Kylo’s shoulder and leaving behind a faint trail of her scent, a mixture of sand and salt along with the leftover smell of scented oils that had been smeared into her hair while she was being bundled up for offering. Kylo watches, somehow able to stretch out his patience to infinity as long as she’s in front of him, or within his vicinity- something he couldn’t possibly say for himself only a few days ago. Rey sits on the foot of the statue and sighs.

“Alright, old man, I give up. Seems like there’s no way to get to the windows,” she leans back on the statue’s shin, staring up at the star littered dome. “Unless a miracle happens, I doubt those doors will open, and if Finn can’t return with help then… guess I’ll end up meeting you sooner than intended.”

Kylo smiles. Yes, she would.

He licks the back of his teeth, trying to figure out how best to proceed. Today had marked _some_ progress. She’d stopped blaming the statue _entirely_ for all this and started instead blaming _other_ people— the list kept growing. That one initiate girl. The towns people. The High Priestess.

“Well, I guess if I’m going to die I might as well do it happy and with a full belly,” she grumbles, then grabs the bottle of honey wine sitting at her side, toasting up to the statue and taking a swallow. “Hope you’re not as silent once I meet you as you are being now. Or as scary.”

 _Perfect._ She’d given him a window of opportunity.

Kylo clears his throat, crossing his arms and cocking his brow as he watches her from his post a few feet away from her. “I doubt he’s scary.”

Rey jumps, swiveling on her heel at the sound of his voice. Of course, she can’t see him. He’s still wearing his helmet of invisibility.

“Who’s out there?” she squeaks, bottle of honey wine held out like a newly whetted sword, eyes wide and lips parted at his intrusion. Kylo wouldn’t be surprised if she smashed the bottle on the statue to actually turn it into a weapon _any_ minute now. He chuckles to himself then speaks up again.

“The groundskeeper.”

Rey’s brows stitch themselves together, looking about again. She slowly, gingerly takes a step back, then another, as she takes a look about the pillars. But there is nothing behind or between the pillars, just empty space and the soft sounds of hollow air circulating the chamber. She then skirts the statue, looking for her intruder, looping it twice before coming back around only inches away from him. Kylo holds his breath and gingerly moves out of her walking path.

“Groundskeeper?” she asks, perplexed that at the fact she’s communicating with a disembodied voice. “I didn’t know this temple had a groundskeeper.” Then, to herself, she mutters. “I didn’t know this temple had _anything_.”

Kylo tilts his head, smiling as he retreats a few steps, the soles of his boots practically gliding on a thin layer of power that keeps them from making noise on the marble floor. “There is one. I’m proof of it. Are you alright in there?” Better for her to think that he’s outside, after all.

Rey frowns again, her skin pebbling with goosebumps. Is she scared? Probably.

But he’d spoken, so it’s hard to stop now when Rey once again questions him.

“How is it that you sound so close?” she asks, the distrust clear on her expression.

“Magic,” Kylo admits with far too much amusement, pointing a languid finger towards his helmet of invisibility, not that she can see. She still traces the room, though, some odd sense of understanding dawning on her features as she looks up at the dome.

“Right,” she says, once more lowering her voice. Rey looks at her bottle for a moment. “I must be going crazy.” But then she draws herself up to her full height, lithe shoulders thrown back, pushing the delicious curves of her chest forward as she licks her lips, readying for the next question. “Well, nice to meet you… I think. Can you get me out?”

The hope in her voice is so palpable it tugs at something in his heart. _Should_ he let her out? If he does, she’d be in his debt, which could prove to be advantageous. But she’d also be exposed to the same people who decided to wrap her up like cattle to the slaughter, and he had no doubt that Rey would run immediately. Perhaps he could talk to her a little longer? Convince her to come with him to his realm? For her own safety, of course.

At least while she’s in here, he can make sure she’s safe until he figures out what to do with her. It’s not as though she’s in true harm here. He’s taken care to keep the place consistently temperature controlled despite the suffocating heat during the day and cold nights outside, as well as keeping the food from rotting. With all the food they’d provided she could easily stay inside for months, realistically. A few more days couldn’t hurt.

Right?

“Is it truly so bad in there?” he asks, curious.

Rey grunts.

“Would _you_ like to be caged up?” Rey bites.

True. It’s a nice cage, but a cage nonetheless.

“No, I suppose not.” he admits, looking at his gloves. He thinks back to her conversation with that Finn boy. “I may be able to do something about it, you’ll have to give me time. That wooden beam is rather heavy.”

If only he weren’t the God of Death himself, he’d be going to hell for this. He shakes his head as Rey lets out a sigh.

“Yes, of course,” she says, taking an undignified swig of the honey wine and wiping the liquid off her pretty lips with the back of her arm. “Thank you, mister…”

“Kylo.”

“Kylo,” she repeats. “Thank you, mister Kylo.”

“Just Kylo.”

“Oh.”

Rey licks her lips, eyeing the windows again as if hoping to see him standing outside of one of them. “Thank you, Kylo. Any help would be deeply appreciated.”

“I’ll be going then,” he lies, and to his surprise, a look of panic crosses Rey’s face.

“WAIT!” she calls out, then stutters with alarm, “wait. Uhm…”

“Yes?”

“Would it be too much— I’m sure you’re probably a busy man, and it’s late, but…” she starts, then looks at her toes. “Do you have a few minutes to spare? To talk?”

“Talk?” he asks, blinking. He focuses on her eyes, watches them shift as she looks about the empty place, as she once more does a circuit around the statue, looking for the source of his voice with desperation like a moth drawn to a flame. Loneliness must be getting to her.

“Yes,” she says. “Is… how are things out there? Has it rained yet?”

Poor girl. Maybe he _should_ just let her out now, no matter his curiosity. Perhaps being secluded by himself for so long had warped his perspective on human need for interaction. Sure, she’d talked to her friend for a few minutes earlier, but she truly must be lonely. Still, Kylo isn't ready to reveal himself, even with the glamour over her memories. She would be mad and then he’d ruin any chances he had at…

What did he want, exactly?

He thinks for a moment.

At first, all he’d wanted was interaction. A chance to talk. Perhaps he wasn’t so different from the humans still, after all this time. How curious. Yet the annoying feeling in the back of his head keeps niggling at him that he’d be making a grave mistake if he revealed himself _now_. Call it a divine hunch.

“No, it has not,” he says, leaning against the marble statue and looking up at the same star littered dome she’d been staring at before, then past it, to stare at Hux’s deep blue skies. Poor humans had gone through so much trouble for nothing. Hux wasn’t one to mess with the natural patterns of the world just to appease a few. “Nor does it look like it will rain any time soon, I’m afraid.”

Rey makes a face, then mutters to herself. “All this nonsense and not a single drop of rain,” she sighs, then tilts her head. “Well, it’s not my problem anymore.”

 _Indeed_.

Then Rey surprises him when she cracks a smile, changing topics as quickly as a shifting wind. “How do you know he’s not scary?”

“Who?” Kylo asks, perplexed.

“This guy,” she says, waving an arm towards the statue. “Everyone else seems to fear him, except you? Do you not believe in him?” her voice hitches with hope. Kylo almost snorts. Of course she’d try to find a kindred spirit in the disembodied voice.

“No, I certainly do,” he says, and Rey rolls her eyes, but her shoulders droop slightly. Weary. Tired. “I just don’t think he’s as awful as your townspeople make him out to be.”

Rey tilts her head, stopping on her tracks as if to consider the words. “Why would you think so?”

Kylo _does_ chuckle then, and Rey starts.

 

****

 

“If he were so bad, the whole town would be dead for locking up such a pretty girl by now,” the disembodied voice says matter of factly. Rey frowns. Was that a compliment? Because it sure didn’t feel like one.

“So it’s okay for _one_ girl to die instead of a whole town so suddenly that makes him a gentle creature?” she asks, a cloud of darkness settling over her soul. Fury.

There’s silence for a moment, as if the owner of that voice were questioning their skills in flattery, then a soft exhale, and her disembodied visitor speaks again. Instead of an apology, she gets something she hadn’t expected.

“Would you like them to be punished then?”

Why does that sound like a request for permission to act? Rey’s frown deepens.

“I—“ she starts. Yes. _Yes_ , she wants them punished. What were they _thinking_? Did they find her life to be so dispensable? Rey had struggled for so long to remain alive, had put up with things nobody should in order to do so, and what? They thought that she’d go to the chopping block happy for the same people who never once dared look at her when she was all skin and bones as a child, cowering in the streets— But then, the sort of punishment this stranger speaks of…

Her senses come back, and with them ebbs the dark shroud attempting to clutch at her very essence.

_No._

Rey could hardly wish death on a whole town for their own ignorance.

“No.” She repeats, this time outloud.

There’s a breathy chuckle, raising goosebumps up and down her arms with its gravelly darkness. She’s heard that chuckle before. It sounds so familiar and yet whenever she tries to place it, her brain fogs over.

“Good answer, Rey.”

…

“How do you know my name?”

“Who _doesn’t_ know your name by now?” her companion retorts, and Rey gives a quivery smile to the empty air, some of her bitterness returning. Funny that _now_ people are aware. 

Well, her visitor has a point.

“Of course.” She says, now with humor. Maybe it’s the fact that she’s been alone for two days, but a voice, _any_ voice, feels like she’s no longer so alone. She’d spoken with Finn for a few minutes that morning but he had to leave, promising that he would try to return and find a way to get her out at any cost. Unfortunately his own arms were too weak to open up the doors, but she might convince somebody to help him, Finn had promised. By the gods, she hopes he would.

But for now, she’d accept this strange anomaly if it truly meant somebody else outside might be able to help her get out of this place, bizarre as it is. She assumes it’s somebody outside, at least. Perhaps there are sound pipes in the walls? Rey had heard of far away places where such a thing was practiced, pipes put into temple walls to trick people into believing they were being spoken to by a divine presence—which seems awfully sacrilegious to her, even if she is a non-believer. Perhaps this is the _magic_ this stranger spoke of.

She’d already looked everywhere and there was nobody inside with her, so at least for now she’s in no danger. Rey slips back down to sit on the bare foot of the god of Death and sighs, leaning her head back.

“Are you still there?” she asks.

“Yes.”

_Why does that voice sound so familiar?_

Rey closes her eyes, dragging air slowly into her lungs as she tries to place the voice. Not that it helps any. It had been a very long day, what with nothing to keep her entertained except attempting to count the minutes in her head and losing track. Maybe she’s started to imagine things.

“Thank you for staying. Even if for a few minutes, I felt less alone.”

The voice is silent for a moment, weighing the true heft of her gratitude. After a breath held too long, the voice speaks. “Would you like me to return? Until I can find help.”

She blinks, her jaw aching with the need to yawn. How man hours has it been now?

“Would you be branded as the town pariah for visiting the girl fated to die?”

A humorous snort. Rey smiles.

“The townspeople couldn’t keep me from getting to you whenever I wished even if they wanted to,” her mystery visitor responds.

What a weirdly sweet sentiment, in its own way. For a girl who had never had anyone who wanted much to do with her, his words somehow make her feel… appreciated. For just a moment. Rey tilts her head, looking around the open space and wishing she could truly see this visitor of hers.

It is a passing fancy, however, lost on the yawn that finally escapes her lips.

“Thank you.”

Another moment of silence.

“My pleasure.”

When nothing else seems forthcoming from her strange visitor, Rey gets to her feet and climbs up the statue to her makeshift bed. Somehow getting up there keeps feeling far easier than it should be, but she figures perhaps her arms are getting stronger with every heave up the statue’s calves, even with the wine now starting to fog her thoughts, trying to lull her into heavy slumber. She curls up under her makeshift blankets—the banners she’d pulled off their hinges and pooled on the old man’s lap for comfort—then scans the vast chamber again. From up here she’d be able to see anyone coming in and moving about, she’d be enough in advance to avoid danger, should somebody decide that Death isn’t being pleased fast enough and come finish the job with a knife.

Then she remembers the man named Kylo.

“What do you gain from helping me?”

There’s no answer.

He must have walked away, then.

Rey sighs. She shouldn’t look a gift in the mouth. Tomorrow— Tomorrow she’d find a way out of here. Hopefully Finn or this Kylo fellow would be able to help her. She closes her eyes with a heavy sigh and decides it’s been a long day indeed.

 

****

 

Kylo reappears at the foot of her makeshift bed, an unusually soft smile playing on his lips. His fingers latch onto his helmet, removing it slowly, the magic of his headpiece shimmering as the illusion disappears. She’d fallen asleep a while ago. Soundly asleep, by the soft sounds of breathy, almost inaudible snoring.

What a curious creature.

She’d accepted his explanation immediately, but the look on her face from there on told him that it hadn’t been without further reasoning. What had she concocted in that beautiful little mind of hers to explain away his presence?

He walks around her slowly, crouching behind her while his helmet hangs limp between his bent knees, and gently tugs off his right hand’s glove. She’s so very delicate, so vulnerable, so unlike anything he’d ever laid eyes upon. It intrigues him, that vulnerability, laid bare for him to see under the soft glow of the torches. She’s stunning, yet fragile, a petal flower displaying its beauty for the world to see, yet easily bruised. Kylo gently brushes a soft, silken strand back away from her face, careful not to disturb her, before letting a finger ghost ever so gently over the shell of her ear, further to the curve of her jaw. That finger makes its way over her shoulder, Kylo nibbling his lower lip all the while as he feels the silky smoothness of her skin, the furious heat of it against his fingertip. He can’t remember the last time he’d felt something so soft. So alive. He removes his hand at the thought.

“Rest well, little flower.”

And with that, he retreats into the shadows. He should visit his own realm soon. He’s been neglecting his appointed duties, the pull to this girl too hard to satisfy completely, like an itch he can’t quite scratch completely, but Mitaka must be fretting by now.

 

****

 

Five days inside the temple now. She is surely going to die here, Rey thinks, as she paces the chamber. It takes her fifteen minutes to do so at a slow pace — it truly is an awfully large place, opulent even in its austerity. Rey figures if she were to break off one of the golden hooks supporting the torches and sell it at the market, she’d be able to live comfortably for months. Or maybe have enough money to finally run away for good.

But she can’t break off the hooks. She can’t even get herself out of here. So instead she does the only other thing she _can_ do as she slowly spirals into her own self-made pit of apathy, she drinks from a canteen of honey wine, pausing every once in a while to snatch some food from the seemingly never-ending supply of offerings at the tables, and she paces. Her new favorite past time: drinking and pacing.

She’s spent the last two days of her captivity riding a cloud of hazy inebriation, enough to cloud her rising anger so she can wait for the moment she dies, and Rey thinks she might _actually_ die from boredom first before she dies from hunger or exposure to changing temperatures. Somehow the food is still good five days out despite the dwindling quantities, with no signs of beginning rot or staleness—something she’d be far more suspicious of were she even a little bit sober, really—and for some strange reason the temperature in the whole of the temple seemed to remain rather… moderate… despite her immense levels of undress in this massively cavernous, gloriously empty temple. Which meant all she had to pass the time was wine—so, so much wine—food, and her thoughts.

That and Finn’s visits. And Kylo’s, whoever he is.

Finn had visited her the previous day, saying he was trying to enlist the help of his friend Poe, and perhaps Poe could convince some of the liquor-addled den dwellers of the city into helping break her out, but that would require heavy bribery for them to see past their own superstitions. Finn isn’t a rich man, and neither is Poe, but her friend had promised that he’d find a way, and she trusts him.

Then there is the matter of Kylo. The supposed groundskeeper of this temple seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time talking to her through what Rey could only believe now to be speaking pipes embedded _somewhere_ , allowing his voice to ring clearly inside, close to the statue. She’d looked for those pipes, any peeping hole, but couldn’t find any, yet now she is all but convinced that they exist. Well, sacrilegious as it is, she would not complain. At least she had company.

She’d spent her time chatting with him, telling him about her life and how she’d come to be here, and laughing at his jokes. When one is facing death, inhibitions about sharing highly personal information seem to fly out the window, figuratively speaking, and a bit of humor made her days more bearable.

He seemed to have a very dry, odd sense of humor, yet somehow it helped her pass the minutes— the hours. For that she is grateful.

He’s been gone for a while now, though.

Rey paces slowly, honey-sweet lower lip caught between her teeth, wondering when she’ll hear his voice again.

As if on cue, her heart leaps at the sound of her name reverberating against the walls.

“Hello, Rey,” her visitor greets.

“Hello,” she says, feeling a little breathless. Perhaps it’s the wine. Perhaps it’s the fact that she’s no longer alone.

Five days, and now this one is closing onto night. The torches are lit again, though she hardly remembers _how_ they got lit in the first place. Rey looks at her wine canteen. Maybe she should stop plying her senses to the ground. She walks towards the statue, where Kylo’s voice rings clearer.

 _Please have some good news for me. Please_.

Her begging intensifies the closer she gets to the statue, looking up at it as she’s taken to doing every time her visitor speaks because it allows her to address _somebody_. It’s less weird than addressing empty air, at least. In her mind, she’s now begun to equate the sharp angles of the statue’s jaw peeking from under its ominous cowl with her unknown visitor’s voice. For all she knows Kylo may be an old man, grey and bowed over like a thirsty, dying tree, wrinkled from years of hard work and a harsher sun beating on him, but in her mind he looks like this… tall and imposing, cowled, with angular features and a prominent nose peeking out from the shadows, strong arms resting leisurely over a book of judgement as it peers down at her with hidden intensity with eyes she wishes she could see.

 _Better than speaking to empty air,_ Rey reminds herself.

And then Kylo says the magic words.

 _“_ I believe I can get you out of there. Go to the door.”

Rey practically runs, barely outpacing the thundering of her pulse.

By the time she’s at the giant wooden doors, the sounds emanating from it pebble her skin with goosebumps. From where she stands, it sounds as though mountains are grinding together, one impossible weight being shifted against another equally impossible mass. She holds her breath to stop her from hyperventilating, the thrill coursing through her veins like electricity. Freedom. She’d taste freedom soon.

 _Please hurry up_. _Please hurry up. Please._

When the doors grind open on their hinges, her breath finally comes out in a hard expelled huff. She closes her eyes and breathes in deeply. The air is fresh, and hot like the dessert, though quickly cooling now that it is night. It smells of salt and arid sand. Of home. She’s blind to the outside when her eyes open again, the darkness so deep compared to the torchlight that bathes her, the sky so black and devoid of stars, and Rey squints. She tilts her head slightly to the side as a spark of something foreign runs up her thighs, her stomach, to her very chest. She’s hoping to see her savior, but all she can make out is a small—or rather, tall and broad, and impossibly imposing—silhouette.

“Kylo?” she calls.

He steps forward, towards the light, and Rey’s body freezes, except for the reflective twitch of her fingers looking for a weapon she doesn’t own.

She’s seen this face. In a hazy daydream, a dream that sometimes morphed into warped nightmares under the cloying influence of honey wine. A face similar to—

Her visitor smiles, and a cool breeze disturbs the tendrils of hair floating by Rey’s ears.

“Hello, Rey.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let the shenanigans begin (continue?). Thanks for reading! and as always, comments and kudos water this local author plant. Plz don't leave me out to dry in the dessert ;p (joking aside though, thank you!)


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're back! so sorry it took so long ToT I had a few crap weeks of health and work and general blah-ness, and so writing took a bit of a dive for me. But now we're back, and hopefully chapters will start being updated far more regularly.
> 
> Also I wanted to say thank you SO much for all the love you've given this story so far! we're almost at 1k kudos! that's insane!!!! I love you all ;-; thanks for supporting my silly stories.
> 
> Apologies for any mistakes - they are my own, and my eyes are tired. lol.

It is instinct that tells Rey that she needs to run. Pure, unadulterated instinct.

She has seen his face before. It had been in her dreams on and off for days, wrapped up in the hazy, sweetly intoxicating lull of inebriation. But she’d also spoken to it, or to something close to it— had _screamed_ at it, specifically.

Rey’s jaw twitches as she throws a nervous glance behind her at the stone statue sitting tall and imposing in the background, illuminated by what now feels like an otherworldly glow emanating from the torches. She whips her head around again only to find her… whatever he is… _savior_? She muses— to find him staring at her, a small upward curve to his lips.

Yet the raw, primal instinct telling her to run is soon silenced by a wave of fury spurred on by the satisfied tilt to this man’s lips when he once again steps forward and his face comes fully into the light. The silken shroud obscuring her memories lifts with a whispered caress and Rey remembers—

“YOU!” she screeches. Kylo, for she has to remember that he has a name, falters. His step slows just as Rey balls up her small fists and starts taking stock of where she could punch him to deliver the most pain.

That’s right, she _remembers_. She remembers walking into a cave, past glowing lights, into a breathtaking field of poppies through which a river ran, and she remembers a _groundskeeper_. _This_ groundskeeper. The same who claims to be the groundskeeper of this temple, but whose face seems awfully close to the statue behind her. And Rey should know fear, but instead she knows fury.

State of undress completely forgotten, she stalks forward and tries to shove him off balance, hands planting hard on his chest and heaving. He doesn’t even twitch, unmovable as a boulder, and up close Rey finally realizes just how much smaller she is. Her head barely comes up to his shoulder.

“ _You!_ ” she repeats, trying once more to shove out of sheer anger, Kylo staring down at her with a perplexed expression. If he had thought to play the role of savior—Rey mentally scoffs at that—and be thanked for it he’d be sorely disappointed. “You’re the reason I was stuck in here!”

Yes. She _remembers_. She remembers coming out into the sun, guided by the hand by this very man—creature? She could see the vague resemblance to the statue. Perhaps… was he related to the god? _Did gods actually exist?_ His presence seems to be a clue, at least. She remembers wondering why the sky had been light, when she’d entered the cave during the night, and then she remembers—

—Nothing. She remembers nothing. Her mind had blanked as she’d fallen into a deep, peaceful slumber. She’d thought she’d imagined it all, but she would never forget that face.

“This is all your fault!” she hisses, throwing a cautious glance over his shoulder just in case. “What did you do to me?”

Kylo’s perplexed look fades into the night, replaced instead by a cooly arched eyebrow and an infuriating trace of smugness that raises Rey’s hackles, an air of regal coolness settling over him like the mantle of night itself. He makes it a point to raise his eyes from her own, looking about her in a wide arch, following the curvature of the doors and forcing her eyes to follow until he’s made his point.

“A favor, from the look of things,” he replies, his voice a slip of silk, low and deep and borderline sinful, his words carrying with them something old and untouchable, as if said voice were not made to be heard by a mere human as herself. Rey swallows, the primal gut feelings returning in a rush and screaming that she should run, she should _cower_ , and most importantly, she should stop talking.

But he’s only a caretaker of a flower field, and he has a _lot_ to explain after she’s spent five days stuck in a Light forsaken temple.

“This is your fault.” she repeats. 

Kylo cants his head sideways, studying her face for a moment. His eyes dance in the firelight, far warmer and more inviting than the rest of him, drawing her like a moth to a flame. And then he gives her a tiny smirk.

“I’m afraid you’re only partly right. I only dared present you with something other than your miserable life, but you had a choice in this. You wandered into my field all on your own. Was it such an awful experience, little flower?”

The pet name feels like a slap to the face. It feels too affectionate, too intimate, as though he knows more of her than she knows herself, and who is he to address her so? 

“Do _not_ call me little flower. I am not _little_. And I’m not just _partly_ right, I am _very_ right, you sanctimonious joke for a human being. You got me stuck in here for days!” It couldn’t have been anyone but him. She had entered his field at the Sun god’s temple. She woke up in the Death god’s temple. She hadn’t walked there of her own volition. Her very human mind seems to put a frantic halt to the next thought trying to break through to the surface, as if attempting to shield her from something she’s not ready for yet. Where _had_ his field been, exactly? 

If he’s taken aback by her outburst, he hides it well, she thinks, because there’s nothing there to indicate surprise. If anything, Rey only finds amusement there. _More_ amusement.

“An unfortunate miscalculation,” he says.

“Excuse me?” 

Rey gapes. She’d been stuck in a temple for days, and in his eyes, it was a _miscalculation_? If not for the fact that her short fuse is quickly being doused by the cool air of night, or the fact that shoving him had had no effect whatsoever, Rey would have already gutted him by now. That, and her suddenly unresponsive limbs. Otherwise she would have, she promises herself feverishly. She would have attacked him by now. It has nothing to do with the sudden leaden weight of her legs, her knees locked up and her feet firmly planted on the ground, unwilling to budge. 

She’s avoiding something important, though she's unsure of what it is. Stalling for time as though her brain, her very fiber, were attempting to suppress raising her awareness to that which any creature alive must know instinctively—once she acknowledges that there are predators going bump in the dark, one must also acknowledge the possibility of becoming prey, and the very air with which Kylo Ren carries himself tells her he’s the predator.

Which is stupid, because _he’s just a groundskeeper._  

But he looks awfully like that statue…

“I am sorry,” he says truthfully. Rey frowns. The apology sounds unused, as if he were not familiar with the sound of those three words strung together, his posture that of a man who rarely, if ever, apologizes for anything. Yet it is not an untruth. Rey eyes him warily.

“Who are you?” she asks.

 

****

“ _Who are you?_ ” she asks, and Kylo smiles.

“A friend.”

“Is that what you call it?” Rey scoffs, eyes trying to look over his shoulder for means of quick escape should it come down to it. It is obvious she doesn’t consider him a friend. “A friend to whom?”

He had seen a small amount of recognition flash across her face and had not cared to renew the full glamour he’d placed over her memories. Part of him had, for some unconscionable reason, wanted her to connect the dots; to see him for what he truly is, in all his power in the shroud of night, but that seemed too rash. So instead he’d left a small amount of said power to linger over her mind, dulling the details so as not to send her running, and choosing to continue his ruse for a little longer.

She had stolen a look at the statue behind her, attempting to grasp at the threads of understanding floating by in the edges of her awareness, then seemed to discard the concept of potential familiarity in her newfound well of fury. It had taken all he had in him not to laugh when she’d tilted her nose up in the air and called him a—what had it been again? A sanctimonious joke of a human being.

So he let it be. What a truly delightful creature, this lovely girl.

“To you, obviously,” says Kylo, “I do not let just about anybody enter my domain.”

That brings her up short, and some of her wariness is once again replaced with hot, short-fused fury.

“A friend to me. Please. So what if I entered your pretty flower field willingly? All I wanted was to be shown the way back. You had no right to leave me here! How did you even manage that, by the way? And because of you I was treated like _cattle_ when the villagers thought I’d escaped him,” she points back towards the statue without looking, but Kylo’s eyes never leave hers. If anything, they glitter with far too much delight as she continues. “And thought that lump of rock would be mad. That doesn’t sound like what friends do for friends— _to_ friends. I don’t even know you.”

“He wouldn’t be.”

“What?”

“Death,” Kylo explains, taking a step forward that sends her staggering a step back to recover lost ground, and him further into the light. “He wouldn’t be mad.”

Rey’s brows furrow, and for a moment she looks at him as though he were stupid, or delusional. He nearly smiles again. She wears her emotions on her sleeve, so vibrantly displayed for all to see. For _him_ to see. A sudden realization dashes past— were it up to him, he would make sure she showed those to nobody but him.

“Right, you think he exists for real,” Rey rolls her eyes, then mutters under her breath, “and I’m the queen of the Underworld.”

 _You could be_ , _if you wanted to_.

The silent quip comes unbidden— startlingly, disturbingly clear. Where had that come from? Kylo shakes his head, trying hard to focus on the matter at hand instead. He takes another step forward, pleased to see Rey doesn’t step back. It feels like a small victory.

“Come now,” he extends a long, beseeching pale hand. “I do mean it, I am sorry. Won’t you come out now?”

Rey stares at his fingers but makes no move to take the invitation, letting her eyes fall back on his instead and pursing her lips. Fool her once…

“Thank you,” Rey says, taking on the most diplomatic tone of voice he’s ever heard in his long, long life, “for opening the doors and freeing me. Truly. But I think I can handle myself from here on out. I’ll go back to the town on my own.”

It is obvious that while she is not frightened of him, no doubt because she believes him to be human still, in Rey’s eyes he’s just as untrustworthy as every other mortal man except perhaps her friend, that boy Finn, in whom she seems to have placed an awful lot of trust. It rankles.

His eyes wander down at her refusal of his offer, trailing the gossamer of her flimsy dress to pointedly land on her chest. Her nipples are barely hinted at under the fabric, though quickly peaking under the coolness of the night, a coolness he does nothing about this time. Rey’s eyes follow, whatever thoughts she had been harboring quickly chased away by the deep shade of crimson flushing her cheeks in the torchlight. He doesn’t need to point out the obvious, so instead—

“Of course you can handle yourself, but you are right that this is partly my fault.” Rey narrows her eyes, silently begging to differ on his _partiality_ _,_ but he continues on undeterred. “Allow me to make amends, at least.”

He forces himself to be as non-threatening an entity as his bulk allows, keeping a hand extended while relaxing the slant of his shoulders. And he _is_ being truthful about his desires to make amends. It just so happens he also wants to see her back in that field, looking ethereal and effervescent, a crown of flowers atop her glossy hair and jewels around her throat. She would be otherworldly, her beauty enhanced by the magic her world cannot afford her.

He can only offer her this right now, even if all he wants is her presence. She’s a puzzle piece for him, one he’s not sure fits anywhere, but part of a puzzle nonetheless, and though there’s nothing more he wants to do than to watch her squirm in her three scraps of fabric, the deliciously alluring curves of her body moving in ways that stir something deep within his desiccated soul, it is always easier to draw bees with sugar water.

“Food, clothes,” he says, “that’s all I offer. Once you’re better you can be on your way.”

“I don’t need food, I have plenty here—“ she turns around to look at the temple behind her. When her eyes land on the tables, the foodstuffs are now nothing more than dust and decay, the honey wine having soured. Kylo hides his satisfied smirk when she looks at him with a confused frown.

“I—“

“Food and clothes,” he repeats, inclining his head to her. “Unless you’d like to return to your village as you are now?”

Rey’s cheeks turn crimson once more.

Food and clothes. Honey for the bees.

“Food and clothes,” she says, and Kylo nods.

“Of course.”

Rey places her hand in his warily, only just missing the triumphant grin that splits Kylo’s face as a hurricane of black smoke envelopes them both and they wink out of existence.

 

****

 

Rey stumbles back a step as she lands in a field of poppies, her body reeling from the whiplash of sudden movement while her alarms scream that this isn’t normal.

Before her, still holding her hand, is her companion—Kylo, the groundskeeper—perhaps standing far closer than necessary, not that Rey has any time to dwell on that singular thought as she wrenches her hand from his grasp and immediately begins putting distance between them.

“Y-You’re not human.”

Kylo lets his hand drop but makes no move to close the distance as he regards her quietly, though Rey thinks she’d seen a hint of mercurial giddiness there before he checked it.

“Yes.”

“Yes you’re not human, or yes you _are_?”

“Both,” he shrugs, his lips twitching. In the ever-present glow of the cave, standing amongst the field of brilliant poppies, he once again becomes something straight out of a daydream.

She had not noticed it the first time around, too busy with her own chagrin at being caught trespassing, but he is truly stunning. Not handsome, no. His features seem a mishmash of features, a too prominent nose and angular chin seeming at odds with each other, high cheekbones perhaps too high… but when he gifts her that small, amused smile, his eyes dancing in the light, this man—this… creature—is truly beautiful. Rey’s alarms ring loud and clear in her head. She needs to get out of here.

But her curiosity is also starting to rear its head.

“How did you do that? We were standing at the temple. Who are you?”

If there’s one thing Rey had learned years ago was to never ask questions she didn’t want an answer to. Who were her parents? Where were they? Why had they left her?

She should have known better than to ask now.

“I am called Kylo Ren,” he responds, this time stepping just a little bit closer, and Rey’s reality shifts from under her feet.

Kylo Ren.

Kylo _Ren._

Ren.

A single memory skitters past the front of her vision like the scene of a satirist play, and Rey sees herself at the town market next to Finn, teasing him about the townspeople not wanting his services.

 _I’m sure they’ll come around,_ Rey had promised, giddy with the knowledge of her secret visits to the temple and her conversations with the old man. _And if they don’t, I’m sure they’ll be thrilled to finally meet the old ma- I mean,_ Ren _— then their agony will finally end._

Ren.

That was what the townspeople called the God of Death, for he had no name of his own, but was a name onto himself. Death. And as long as life existed, so would he. Meeting Death was inevitable, but few dared say his name outloud. As long as it was spoken, he would be there.

Except he’d said his name was _Kylo_.

So the God of Death had a name after all?

It is a stupid thing to focus on when her brain is going at immense speed while her body remains frozen, rooted to the spot by his words. She should have listened to her instincts when the doors first opened. Had she called him upon her by whispering it in the streets? had she doomed herself?

That lends itself to another realization.

Rey opens her mouth, closes it again, and Kylo’s smirk widens. He steps closer. That motion helps her find her voice.

“You kidnapped me!” she screeches, though the accusation comes out more like the frightened squeak of a mouse than that of a furious, recently kidnapped maiden. She takes yet another step backward until the sounds of the stream behind her rush her ears.

Kylo Ren— Death! Gods, Death is staring her right in the face, chuckling. Kylo Ren steps even closer yet, his head once again tilting in what she’s quickly recognizing as a quirk, a tell-tale sign that he’s thinking.

“It is hardly kidnapping if once again you came willingly, little flower.” Kylo waves a hand in the air, towards the massive poppy field. “Welcome once more to my realm.”

His realm.

There’s a beat of silence, then Rey startles, looking about and completely forgetting that she’s standing on a bed of beautiful flowers, nearly naked, as realization dawns on her. _His_ realm!

“You’re Death?”

No, it can't be. 

She must be wearing her confusion on her sleeve, because Kylo sighs. 

“I’ve been called that, yes.”

What little breath she’d been harboring is knocked out by his confirmation, and suddenly she feels just a little faint.

Run. Run. Run. Scream. _Run!_ Her nerves sing, but she’s rooted to the spot.

So, she’s dead now?

_No!_

Her mind pinwheels. How could she be dead? She’d just been standing at a temple. But he’d dragged her here, and if he is who she thinks he is… _what_ she thinks he is?

No. No, she couldn’t be dead. This had been a cave. If she was able to enter it once, she could exit it now. Finally, _finally_ , her body obeys, her muscles tensing then releasing. Without saying another word Rey turns ready to bolt, making for the area where she remembers the door to the cave. Except when she gets close enough, there is no cave mouth. A second later, Kylo appears next to her in a swirl of midnight ink.

“Looking to leave so quickly?” he breathes into her ear, voice tinged with twisted delight. “But we just arrived.”

Rey flinches, jumping what feels like several feet in the air and away from him, desperate to put distance between her body and his much, much bigger one. She’s cornered, a mouse for the cat to play with, and with no means of escape. That much becomes obvious. There are no means of escape… Light above, where would she even run? For all she knows, she’s thousands of feet underground.

“Where are we? What have you done to me?”

His brows rise. “What have I done? I have done nothing, I assure you. Merely brought you to a place where I can provide what you accepted: food and clothing. As for where we are… This is not your world. Or even your universe.”

It is her fear that drives her as much as her rage when Rey wheels about, all sense of self-preservation tossed into the ether. The fact that he seems amused by her shifts between terrified and enraged only makes her blood boil.

“You tricked me!”

“Did I?” he says, arching an eyebrow. “I never lied.”

“You said you’re a groundskeeper!”

Kylo’s smugness amplifies. “I rule these grounds,” he says, pointing towards the field. “And everything beyond it. The creatures here are kept alive by my power. Is that not the same thing?”

Rey’s mouth clamps shut with a click. Is she really doing this? Arguing with a…

No.

Her mind still refuses to admit defeat, because if she were to, Rey is sure she’d make water on herself and possibly faint. Or cry. Or scream herself hoarse.

No. He may be a… a creature… a monster. A _thing._ But a god? Gods don’t exist.

She must have said that last bit out loud because in the next breath Kylo Ren is laughing.

“Ah, but we do,” he chortles. “You stubborn little human. You see the eternal in front of your eyes, you speak with me, and yet you deny my existence. Though perhaps it is a fault of your very nature, unable to see past your own meager mortality. What did you expect? Creatures made of blinding light and thunderous voices?” he grins, reaching out and tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear before she can even so much as let out a squeak. “Would you like that, instead? It would be easily accomplished.”

Rey presses herself against the icy cold wall of the cave, feeling it against every inch of uncovered skin, and shivers. The shiver has nothing to do with the ice at her back, however.

“I would like to go home.”

Kylo _tsks_.

It seems he has dropped all pretenses of helping her. “Back to those who, what did you call it? Ah— treated you like _cattle_? How nobly loyal of you.” He sighs, taking a step back. “I only offered you food and clothes. Won’t you stay until I’ve provided both?”

“No.”

“Why?” he asks, head cocked again in silent thinking.

“Because you’re…y-you’re—“

“Death?”

Rey’s throat is dry. So very dry. Kylo shakes his head, studying her from head to toe.

“You didn’t seem to be afraid of Death in the temple. If I remember correctly, you were very keen to pick a fight with me. Now I’m here, and your tongue has deserted you?” he says, and for some reason, Rey gets the impression that he’s…disappointed? But how could he?

_Gods don’t exist. Gods don’t exist. Gods don’t exist._

_“This is a trick,”_ she hisses to herself, looking around once again for an exit. She’s being tricked and she’s falling right into it, and Rey refuses to let it go on any longer. “This is a trick, and you’re a liar.”

The cave pulses brightly, a sharp rise in light and heat, and around her a handful of poppies wilt. Rey looks about her, drawing her bare feet closer in to avoid whatever turned them to dust—realizing, to begin with, that she’s also barefoot— staring at the ashes of what used to be bright poppy petals swaying in the eternal wind.

“I am many things, little human, but a liar is not one of them,” he says, then, with a shuddering breath, Kylo Ren collects himself and stands taller. Another shiver runs through her. His eyes fall to her bare toes, a small frown marring his otherwise perfect face. “Now, enough of this. You are cold and practically naked. You will follow me.”

He’s done indulging her, Rey thinks. The predator is done playing with his meal, and what a predator he is. Despite her better judgment, Rey swallows the words she was about to say and nods once. He turns without another word and starts walking as though he owns the place, not waiting to see if she follows. And he _does_ own the place, liar or not. The very air seems to move differently around him. Rey quietly takes a step forward, then another, cataloging all possible means of escape as they move for what feels like an eternity through the poppy field.

It is still as beautiful as the first time, but she barely noticed the beauty now. No, all she notices is the exit, the one on the opposite end skirting close to a massive forest after minutes upon minutes walking, opening up into a wide expanse of land far ahead bathed in the subtle glow of stars. It is not the entrance she’d once used to arrive here, that’s for certain.

When they finally pass through it, the very air in her has ripped away from her lungs as Rey’s eyes tilt up to the skies and she is met with something she has never seen in her life. Something she’d never even dared to imagine. Beyond the permeating, watery blue light of the land, beyond the snow and fog capped mountains and barren, rocky expanses; past the river flowing only feet away from her, and the glowing creatures circling the sky like wraiths, there is one particular thing that truly cements the fact that she’s not in her world.

There aren’t stars in the sky. Well, there _are_ , but there aren’t the ones of her home, of her _world_ , distant and cold like little pinpricks of light, for here every star is a galaxy itself, thousands of them littering the skies, swirling, colliding, passing each other dangerously close, some so close to where they stand that Rey imagines she could pick off individual stars within them, and suddenly she feels so very small. She drowns in her very own insignificance, the same terror she’d felt before seeping into her veins at the sheer, monumental scale of what she’s experiencing. It’s almost enough to make her dizzy, to make her want to vomit. Galaxies upon galaxies as far as the eye can see, as though she were standing on the very fabric of the universe and examining its threads. She is mortal, and this is not her mortal plane.

Kylo Ren — _Death_ , she realizes with a stuttered heartbeat— turns his head to look at her. There is no gloating in his face, but a certain gleam of satisfaction still twinkles in his eyes.

“Are you convinced, sweet little Rey?” he asks.

Rey’s words fail her.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those wondering what the deal with Ren's name is, this tidbit draws from Ancient Egyptian mythology.
> 
> "As a part of the soul, a person's ren (rn 'name') was given to them at birth and the Egyptians believed that it would live for as long as that name was spoken, which explains why efforts were made to protect it and the practice of placing it in numerous writings. For example, part of the Book of Breathings, a derivative of the Book of the Dead, was a means to ensure the survival of the name."
> 
> Kylo is a soul (or specifically, a claimer of them), a being, a capital N name unto himself, but he has none. It's warped to suit my own purposes, of course, but - hint - this will be good to remember in the future. ;)


	8. Chapter 8

_Are you convinced, sweet little Rey?_

Rey completely misses Kylo Ren’s question. It isn’t that hard to do, in fact, when all of her senses have been swallowed up by the otherworldly impossibility dwarfing her and pressing down on her existence as she watches galaxies move and churn and spin high above her. Once upon a time, when she was still a young child, she would look up at the sky and feel so very insignificant when presented with a wide, open sea of cloudless blue that seemed to stretch on by eternity. That, however, paled in comparison to _this_. So she doesn’t hear Kylo’s smug little quip about whether she’s been convinced, nor does his infuriating choice of endearment in calling her _little_ even remotely register. A god he may be, but she’s staring at an entire _universe_. With her own two eyes. While somehow standing apart from it, outside of it, looking on from some cliff watching all of existence dance before her very human eyes.

Which means that even though Kylo’s amused line of questioning never reaches the part of her brain equipped to answer it, she has been nonetheless thoroughly convinced.

So. It was true. All of it.

And with that realization, fear — _true_ fear — settles deep in her bones.

Light, she’d attacked a _god_. Mocked him, threatened him, _attacked_ him. And he’s now looking at her. She licks her lips nervously, not daring to look at him in return as she allows herself a few more moments to think before the inevitability of having to confront him presents itself.

Should she throw herself on her knees and beg for forgiveness? Apologize for all she’s worth? Or maybe she should just throw herself right off the cliff. But doing that would accomplish nothing. She’d only end up dead and right back where she started, here and at his mercy. He seems to be in no rush to command her attention, simply waiting her out.

Well… he hadn’t necessarily done anything untoward, really—as long as she didn’t count getting her stuck as a sacrificial bride, deceiving her, and then whisking her away to a magical alternate plane of existence. Rey reminds herself that she’s still in one piece, relatively safe (if she ignores all previously mentioned reasons), and he _did_ promise to simply help her. She chooses to appeal to that promise now.

“So… food and clothes?” she asks, stealing a nervous glance. Kylo’s lips twitch upward and she doesn’t miss the amused twinkle in his eye but chooses to swallow her trepidation for now. She’s, well, she’s well and truly stuck. She can return to being furious once she’s back in _normal_ territory.

“Food and clothes,” Kylo nods, stepping closer. Rey instinctively takes a step back, one that brings her far too close to the edge of the massive cliff they’re standing on, and her companion arches a crisp eyebrow as he extends a hand for her to take. “I promise I do not bite.”

 _That remains to be seen_ , she thinks wryly, staring at his outstretched hand, her eyes following the pitch black fabric of his sleeve, to his chest, past the silvery clasps of his cloak towards his neck, where his adam’s apple bobs gently. Then she remembers how, by comparison, she’s practically naked. This is punctuated by a gust of cool air emanating from nowhere and everywhere at once, and Rey shivers. Going against her better judgment, she places her hand in his and has only a moment to hear him murmur _hold on_ before she’s being transported through nothingness, as though swimming through a void that’s trying to pull her insides outward through her belly button. A second later, her feet touch the ground and Rey stumbles forward, only to be righted by Kylo Ren. She quickly disentangles herself from his arms, clearing her throat loudly and stepping back so she can look around, much to his amusement.

They’re standing in a large room, larger than anything she’s ever seen in her life, except when she looks up there are no stars, no churning galaxies, just… nothing. It’s as though they stand at the very bottom of a pit with an ever present darkness above them, though for some strange reason she’s still able to see clearly without torchlight. She curls her toes on the cold marble floor. Beyond them is a set of massive, glistening doors, ornately carved as though by the most loving of sculptor's hands, and just as black as the floor, as the ceiling (or lack thereof), and as black as the clothes of her host. By contrast, she stands out like a fragile young flower, exposed and easily bruised.

For a moment Rey wondered if this man—no, this _God—_ might not just be a little too overly fond of darkness. She eyes him for a moment, taking his stock, and deciding she can’t very well judge something she had never encountered before in her life, Rey discards the observation in favor of getting her bearings.

“Where are we?” she asks.

“My home,” Kylo responds softly, then, in the next breath, lets out an earth rattling bark that makes her jump. “Dopheld!”

Rey lets out a yelp when a man seems to step out of thin air a few steps before them, instinctively moving to use Kylo as a shield as she takes a few steps to the side and behind him, earning herself yet another small smirk. She immediately hates Kylo Ren’s guts, if he even _has_ guts inside him, just a little bit.  

“Dopheld,” he repeats, this time in his normal tone of voice. Rey gathers up her courage to step out from behind him to get a closer look at whom he’s addressing.

This Dopheld character seems… young. Younger than Kylo Ren, at least, and shorter by at least a head and a half, which puts him closer to Rey’s height and makes it easier for her to make eye contact. Dopheld inclines his head her way, giving her a small smile after the startled look he’d been wearing disappears, and it transforms the gaunt, sharp angles of his face into something far warmer despite the man’s pallor. He also seems to be making a very, very painful effort not to look at anything but her face, given her state of undress.

Rey also decides she likes this Dopheld man just a little bit, returning the warm gesture and the measure of considerate discretion.

“My Lord,” Dopheld greets, his voice so very soft. He once again glances at Rey’s face like he can’t help himself, and she gets a distinct feeling that he’s _very_ confused to be seeing her here.

Kylo either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care.

“Would you be so kind as to show the lady to a room so she may refresh herself and change?” he says, as though he receives people often and keeps wardrobes in place just for such occasions? “Once done, please prepare food for our guest.”

Mitaka nods,  bowing at the waist while holding his blue-lit torch up high to illuminate a circle around them, just as Kylo turns to look at her. There’s a satisfied look there that should make her uncomfortable, or at least wary, but she’s having a hard time finding it in her to be anything but overwhelmed, so instead she eyes the jewel blue of the fire a little longer before turning to Kylo Ren. Well, it sounds like he’s carrying through on his promise.

_Remember, Rey, it could be so much worse. You could be dead._

Which she knows she isn't, because the beating of her heart has not slowed down for a while now, and it gives an odd backflip when she turns her head only to find that Kylo has moved closer, and yet again when his smirk at the wonder in her eyes turns into a soft smile.

“I will join you shortly,” he says, tilting his head towards the onyx doors. “Please, make yourself at home.”

He disappears without another word.

****

Mitaka had not expected to see a human, a live, breathing human, in this realm. He hadn’t seen a human since... well, since he was a human himself. That had been many eons ago. Nowadays he only interacted with souls, those he drove from the banks to the throne room to be judged, and with his own lord and master. So to say that he’s feeling a little out of his depth is an understatement.

He steals a glance at the girl. A beautiful, bright little thing.  Perhaps a little _too_ bright. She sticks out in the darkness, and dressed as she is, with so little left to the imagination and too-smooth human limbs through which blood flows in a rush and the beating of her heart marking time in his ears, she sticks out like a sore thumb.

What had his master been thinking? If his interest in the girl hadn’t been bad enough, bringing her here certainly would be. He had only tried to keep Ren from his usual bouts of volatile boredom, but to bring her _here_ , to his very home…

The girl tilts her head as if waiting for him to perform some sort of magic trick, her eyes flicking back to the blue fire every so often while still eyeing him warily. She’s scared, he can tell. The drumming of her heartbeat tells him as much, even if she’s making a very brave attempt at keeping the anxiety off her face. So Mitaka once again smiles, hunching his shoulders in to make himself just a little smaller as he addresses her.

“Welcome,” he says, his voice gravelly from disuse. He’s not very much used to speaking a lot other than to say _yes, My Lord_ , and _no, My Lord_ , so these are new waters for him. “I’m Dopheld Mitaka.”

The girl shifts her weight. Poor thing, she must be terrified. “Erm—nice to meet you, Lord Mitaka.”

Yep. Definitely terrified. And freezing. Why Lord Ren had not adjusted the environment to suit the frail nature of human needs is beyond him, so with a small shake of his head, Mitaka expends a small amount of the little power he has to create a minuscule bubble of warmth around her, watching her blink twice then relax into herself at the sudden shift.

“Just Mitaka,” he says, turning to wave his hands over the doors. They groan under their own massive weight as if unwilling to separate and Mitaka wonders if she’s aware that stepping through these doors could easily mean she could never get back out again. Not unless he or his master was to open the gates, and his master could very easily just _order_ Mitaka not to. Mitaka licks his lips, glad that his back is to her. This could turn out to be a horrible idea.

“Please follow me.”

He listens for her steps and is quickly rewarded by the swishing sound of her skirts on the marble, and Mitaka dares glance back at her.

What a horrible idea this could turn out to be. Lord Hux will not be happy.

“May I inquire as to how long you will be staying with us, My Lady?” he asks.

The girl’s looking around, taking in every single detail of the long corridor, the tall pillars and blue torched sconces they pass, while still remaining so close to him were he to stop abruptly she’d run into his back in three steps.

“Please, no need. I’m just Rey,” she responds humbly, ignoring his question. Mitaka smiles. Not that his decorum or station would allow him to call her anything else, but it was refreshing to be around one who didn’t think so highly of herself like gods and goddesses often do.

“Nice to meet you. As it may, My Lady,” he begins, turning down to the right and holding the torch high and bright to illuminate their passage. It is exhausting to maintain even the small bubble of warmth around their guest the longer he must maintain it, but the deeper in they go the colder it will become, so he does as he must. “Will you be staying with us for long? My Lord seemed pleased by your visit. I simply wonder.”

Lady Rey snorts a completely unladylike noise that echoes up and down the hall. “Your  _Lord_ seems to do whatever he pleases when he pleases, so I’m not surprised that he would be pleased. But no,” she says, and her voice takes on a bit of a stubborn yet wary note, “I will simply be changing out clothes and accepting a meal, as he promised.”

That gives Mitaka pause. He had _promised_ food? Not just thought of it at the moment Mitaka had been addressed?

This could not end well.

****

“I see,” Mitaka says, and Rey frowns at his back. The man may not be one of many words, by the way he’s behaved so far, but even she could pick up on his tone. It sounds… resigned. That resignation has her alarms ringing.

“Why? Is there a problem?” she asks, stepping closer until she’s walking at his side rather than behind him, trying to look for any clues in his countenance that she may be making an awful mistake.

Mitaka seems to straighten as if pulled by a string, looking straight ahead, yet Rey hardly misses the fidgety way in which his eyes search the darkness ahead and above them as if expecting that the hall has ears. Maybe it does.

“No problem, My Lady,” he responds, schooling his face to nonchalance before it morphs into a strained, unpracticed look of friendliness. This man does not get to talk to many often. “I was simply curious. It is not often we have guests,” he says, then gives her an apologetic smile, “at least not of the breathing sort. I do not often find myself in, ah— the _position_ of escorting the living, or feeding them.”

Well, that seems… obvious. It should have been obvious to her, at least. Her cheeks flush.

“Am I disrupting your duties? I am very sorry, if so,” she offers, because even though she’s scared out of her wits a part of her will never forget to be kind where she can, and she suddenly feels as though she’s imposing on Mitaka’s time. She wants to ask him what his duties _are_ , her curiosity at the unknown warring for prominence with her nervousness, but asking might just turn out to be rude, so she bites her tongue.

“Obeying my master  _is_ my duty, M’Lady,” he says with a chuckle, turning down yet another corridor.

This one is wider, blessedly carpeted in a silver-threaded plushy length of rug that feels as though she were walking on clouds, and what she notes to be an outer wall broken by high arched windows of crystalline glass that give her a beautiful view of the realm below. She finds herself looking away from it, once again feeling insignificant, and focuses instead on Mitaka’s blue flame.

“I am simply out of my...depth…” Mitaka continues, smiling as though he’s referencing some inner joke she’s not privy to, while turning to look at her. “That said, I would very much like to make your visit here as enjoyable as possible for however long or short it lasts. Is there anything in specific you would like for dinner?”

The way he puts such emphasis on the word dinner gives her pause. Rey threads her hands behind her, fidgeting with her fingernails. She’s much warmer now, and though she can’t seem to understand _how_ or why it suddenly became warmer, she’s glad for it. Otherwise she would be crossing her arms in front of her, which… for all intents and purposes, she _should_ , but that would make it seem as though she is ashamed. Which she is not.

 _She decidedly is_ not.

“No need. I already ate, actually,” she says. As if on cue, her stomach growls. Rey frowns, looking down at it, and Mitaka chuckles.

“Your body runs on mortal time,” he says, “and down here time flows… slower. It may be but a moment that we’ve been talking, but time has flown differently in your realm. It seems your meal’s long been digested, though I assume the longer you remain underground the more you would assimilate to our differences.”

She doesn’t really hear anything he’s said about food and bodies and assimilating to their realm. All Rey hears is about _time_.

“What do you mean time’s different? What time is it at home?” she asks.

Mitaka gives her yet another look, and once again his visage turns resigned, chagrined.

“The better question to ask might be _what day_ , M’Lady,” Mitaka says, staring off into the distance, “though it is hard to say. It could have been hours, it could be months. This place... for some of the worlds out there,” he points towards the windows, towards the skies and the view that has been making her subconsciously queasy for a while now. He pauses, looking for the words, as if trying to figure out how to explain this concept to a child, “we have no moon cycles here, unlike your planet. We have no _moon_ , or sun, or _life_. Everything that exists, exists because Lord Ren wills it so by his very essence, his existence, his power, and thus we have no way of measuring time. It is as infinitely ever-lasting as the one who holds the key to its power himself, but if I were to take a guess… hmm…”

He once again bows his head in her direction, extending his hand for her to follow him away from the corridor with its beautiful windows and distressing sights, and towards another shorter, more crowded one. So, this is where sleeping quarters are. She follows him and still keeps her eyes on him, and Mitaka finally sighs.

“I visited your home planet. Once. So I will explain in terms you understand. An hour of your world’s time _here_ could easily be days, weeks or even months in any other world. For some of those planets in the reaches of your universe, and of other universes, an hour _here_ could easily be millennia for them.”

What?

Nevermind the idea of a whole universe, but _multiple_ ? And nevermind _all that!_ What about her life? Her friends? What if she was stuck here for food and clothes and when she next came back Finn was long gone, Poe? Her home? Granted, she doesn’t have many friends, but the few she has…

If she needed any more reason to be alarmed, this is it. Her hunger disappears. Rey clutches at her skirts, no longer caring what they may or may not be revealing, the only sounds in the corridor as Mitaka slows down in front of a door being the tinkling golden sounds of her bangles and ankle bracelets. Mitaka opens a door and motions her in, but makes no move to enter himself.

Her room.

One she refuses to go into.

“Actually, may you take me back to your master? Right now?” she asks.

Mitaka takes on a faraway look as if he’s looking at something, before he shakes his head. “I’m afraid Lord Ren is currently occupied.”

_Occu—_

“No, you don’t understand,” she says, refusing to enter the room even as Mitaka holds the torch out to illuminate her passage. Not that she needs it, really. She can see _just_ fine, as though she were stuck in the perpetual light of twilight. “I can’t stay here. Not for food. Not for clothes. What you just said about time? Look, I have friends, family… of sorts… I can’t just stay if it means time may just—”

Suddenly Mitaka scratches his neck, and she can finally get a good look at the hand not holding the torch. They are calloused hands, rough and curled as though he were used to holding onto something at all times, corded and pale, but they hold no true _warmth_. She looks at his face anew, now that the light of his blue torch is far enough away. He’s not human. She knows this, something in her had always known it, in some dusty part of her psyche that had started accumulating facts about all this and stashing them away for future inspection, but hadn’t actually acknowledged. She’s talking to somebody who must be a million times her age.

“How old are you, Mitaka?” she asks.

Mitaka blinks rapidly, obviously thrown off by her question. He had been, no doubt, trying to find ways to assuage her fears and not get into an argument. Instead, he cocks his head lightly, probably a tic he picked up from his employer, then shrugs sadly.

“I do not remember, M’Lady.” he says, then stretches his hand out in supplication. She was right. He seems to have a hard time stretching out his digits, as though he’s spent his whole existence holding onto a stick for dear life instead. “But I promise you, it is not as bad as all that. I admit I am not as… powerful as the master. Not by a thousand times. I cannot accurately tell you what time must be like where you are, but I can assure you your friends will be fine, and you will return to find them just as you did before.”

Rey narrows her eyes.

“How do you know?”

Is he _blushing_? Mitaka smiles, looking awfully embarrassed, and shifts his weight. For a moment he seems more like a boy than a man, and Rey starts feeling like Mitaka isn’t telling her something.

“I fear I may have done more harm than good in attempting to put you at ease,” he says, completely bypassing her question. “But know I will do all I can to make sure you are comfortable and well fed for your short stay. Is there anything, _anything_ , you’d like to eat? From your home perhaps? I am not an amazing cook, but I could try… Please.”

It’s the please that does it. She hates it when people ask her for things. She can never turn them down, especially not when asked with such a pleading puppy look on their faces as Mitaka is giving her right now. Rey sighs, suddenly feeling awfully rude, yet no less full of trepidation for it.

“You promise me that everything will be okay?”

“...Yes.”

“That didn’t sound very convincing,” she says, pursing her lips. Mitaka straightens.

“It will be fine, M’Lady.” he responds, but at least this time, he sounds far more sure of himself. Rey nods.

“So I won’t go back and find out my friends have been long dead and buried?” she asks. What would it be like if she stepped out of this place to find out Finn is gone? She would die of sadness, probably, is what she’d do.

_And then I’d end up right back here, probably talking to Mitaka._

Rey almost wants to laugh. Suddenly the true understanding of the phrase _you can cheat death multiple times, but you can’t outrun it_ _forever_ rings so very loudly in her head.

“Your lord is obnoxious,” she blurts out, now unable to see death as anything but the man. The God.

Mitaka smiles, immediately warming up. “He has a tendency to be… intense, yes.”

“There is nothing, in particular, I’d like to eat. I’d be fine with just a piece of fruit, thank you.”

Mitaka frowns, and for a moment Rey thinks she’s once again stepped on his hosting sensibilities, so she opens her mouth to amend quickly, but Mitaka beats her to the punch.

“As you wish, M’Lady,” he says, then turns to leave, and Rey starts to sag into herself. She may have just offended the only friendly face she knows in this place. But Mitaka falters in his about-turn, stopping for a second and biting his lip before giving her a careful look of consideration. “If it wouldn’t be so much to ask, Lady Rey, I ask that you only eat the food I serve you.”

It is the first time he’s ever spoken her name in the short amount of time she’s known him, so Rey’s senses perk up.

“Why, is there something I should not touch?” she looks around, suddenly wary of everything. The carpet, the door, the walls, even Mitaka’s blue flame. He smiles slightly, but he seems a little more tired than he did before.

“Just a precaution, M’Lady. Remember this place is not like your own home,” he inclines his head.

Well, that makes sense. What if she ate some weird thing that her body isn’t made to digest? So she nods, unwilling to die and return to this place permanently sooner than absolutely necessary. Mitaka gifts her with a pleased grin before bowing deeply at the waist and retreating by walking backward as he talks, and taking with him the heat that engulfed her.

“The bathtub should be warm for you. If you would like it warmer, simply...uh… think it. It will happen. And there should be a gown laid out on the bed. I will return to retrieve you in time for dinner.”

And with that, Rey is left alone. She shivers, then looks into the room. A vast chamber waits beyond the door for her, and as she steps in a roaring fire springs to life in a massive stone hearth on the farthest wall. The fire is blue. Rey stares, still unable to stop being mystified by its hue, before letting her eyes travel to a gargantuan tub only a few feet away from the fire, and to a bed on an opposing wall, with what looks like shimmering fabric laid out on it. She swallows and steps closer to the fire, glad that this one, at least, gives off much needed warmth before she wraps her arms around herself and shivers once more.

This time it has nothing to do with the fire.

What in the Light had she gotten herself into?

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not a lot of Kylo. Plenty of Mitaka being uncomfortable, though. Poor Mitaka. He's just trying to do his best... #savemitaka 
> 
> ALSO WHAT DID YOU THINK OF THAT TRAILER (YOU KNOW THE ONE) AND TV SPOT?! holy shit.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All mistakes are mine ;p and will probably be fixed when I get up tomorrow and have time to not be cross-eyed. For now, enjoy!

“You took something from my realm.” 

There it is. That annoyingly crisp voice, every word perfectly enunciated with intent to dig into Kylo’s brain like claws against iron. 

Kylo stalks past Hux and towards his dais, purposely ignoring him as their cloaks kiss, a rush of blotty midnight ink brushing pristine white, bright as sunbreak. Except here, at least, Kylo blends into his surroundings. Hux sticks out like a sore thumb.

“Who let you in?” he asks, careful to maintain a veneer of calmness as he takes his seat, long legs stretching out, knees bent and seemingly relaxed even as everything in him strains, taut corded muscle straining against the heavy fabrics of his tunic with the barely suppressed, cautious wariness of a predator sizing up another. 

“I let myself in,” Hux says, the knife sharp clicking of his heels grating on Kylo’s ears as the god of the skies makes a deliberate show of walking about slowly, looking around the throne room as though he hasn’t already seen it a thousand times, a million times. “Seeing as you barged into my own home without invitation, I figured we’re past such pleasantries as _waiting to be announced_ , don’t you think?”

Kylo narrows his eyes, working his jaw as he allows the slight to roll off his shoulders before he answers. “Perhaps you should return to it, then, now that you’ve made your point. There is very little reason for me to ever step foot there again.”

Hux _tsks_ , pulling eyes the color of storm clouds and lightning away from his mock scrutiny of the sconces and piercing Kylo instead. 

“Nice try, but I believe my initial statement remains unanswered,” Hux says, carefully inspecting his perfectly trim nails. “You have something that belongs to me.”

It is impressive, really, how easily Hux can get under Kylo’s skin with just a few calculated words. It really takes _so_ little— and though Kylo has had an eternity in which to learn to both ignore him and repay him with equal measure, those last seven words manage to become a pulsing, ugly boil, hot and uncomfortable and very near bursting. 

Instead Kylo grits his teeth and waits for Hux to continue. He would not rise to the bait.

“Return her to her rightful place, Ren.”

“What would _you_ know of her rightful place?” Kylo asks, letting his brows rise as he looks at Hux down his nose, knowing how much it will irritate him. If there is something Hux has always despised, it is to be thought of as _lesser_.

“She belongs to the realm of the living. And if, perhaps, you spent more time focusing on the realm of the _dead_ instead, rather than traipsing above chasing a bit of _mortal skirt_ , I wouldn’t have to endure all these souls you haven’t dealt with running amok in your absence, scaring the living Light out of all these humans who believe them to be demons.” Hux pinches his nose in distaste. 

So that’s what it’s all about. It’s _inconveniencing him_.

Kylo smirks, resisting the urge to snort instead at finally knowing why Hux is in such a Light-forsaken mood. Constantly hearing the pleading voices of mortals praying for somebody to save them, like annoying gnats buzzing in Hux’s ears, must be quite obnoxious. Good. In this, at least, Kylo is lucky. Too many fear him more than they venerate him. Nobody truly invokes the name of Death unless they want to meet him, and for mortals, that’s not something they ever _truly_ want. The image, however, is still amusing. Kylo imagines the screeches of some mortal somewhere overseeing the floating specter of a helpless happabore and delights in knowing Hux is the one who has to deal with the noise. As if a single unbound soul could do anything. The only creatures who could truly _hurt_ anything are all under Kylo’s command, after all. 

Still, he goads the sun god, because goading Hux is almost as entertaining as Rey’s company. Almost. 

“Surely you exaggerate. I hardly see how a few souls could cause such havoc. Since when do you care so much for mortals, Hux?”

“Since when do _you_?” Hux asks, not skipping a beat. “Return her at once.”

Kylo finally allows himself a wolfish grin, akin to that of the beast guarding his gates and just as unfriendly. Any closer a resemblance and Kylo’s hair would turn to jet black fur, eyes to wispy blue smoke from the depths of the very fires burning in the pits of his mountain, canines elongating to fangs. Instead, Hux is met with glinting white teeth and golden brown eyes that dance with a sort of sick mirth, a glint of victory,  as Kylo leans forward, hands on his throne’s arms.

“She came of her own free will.”

He watches Hux’s face for a reaction, documenting the minute tic at the sun god’s left temple as Hux grinds down on his molars. Clearly, the man had hoped to turn all this against him, to chastise him and then bathe in his own filthy sense of superiority. Or force Kylo’s hand, otherwise. Not today. His _guest_ had come of her own free will, and thus there was nothing the annoying god of the skies and the seas could do about it. It must _grate_ on Hux, and thus it severely satisfied Kylo. 

“Is that so?” Hux asks, having quickly masked his displeasure (or confusion) with a practiced air of nonchalance. Kylo’s smile widens. Hux’s temple tics once more. 

The sun God smells of ozone. Of raindrops clinging onto copper lashes to herald an angry storm and of the electric charge running through his veins as he sees his small window of opportunity close, and Kylo can almost taste how much it bothers Hux that he has seemingly gotten away with snatching the girl right from under Hux’s nose, on the small technicality that those pavement stones belong to _him_ even if the sun scorched earth a single step down the temple entrance is Hux’s territory, and how the redhead whose temper is always so well reined in can do nothing about it all because _the girl came willingly_. 

And so, just like that, Kylo has won his argument. He waves a hand in Hux’s direction, knowing he’ll probably end up enduring some nonsense or other in the future for it--the balance of power between him and Hux is a delicate one, and one both men continually find themselves testing--but Kylo’s got the upper hand now and refuses to allow Hux’s impeccably quick thinking to find a way to turn this to his favor. So he does the one thing he knows will cement Kylo’s point and further raise Hux’s ire. He revokes the sun god’s begrudgingly granted access to his realm. 

“You may go.”

He can see that power curling over Hux instantly, chilling the room until Kylo himself starts to feel the razor-edged iciness of said power prickling under his gloves. Any moment now Hux will either be forced to leave of his own accord or otherwise be dragged out against his will by the unnatural power of Kylo’s realm, only to be dropped unceremoniously in his. The downside to being able to do this is that Hux may just well do the same to _him_ whenever he wishes, but Kylo has no reason to leave his own turf anytime soon. He has all he wants or needs at the moment right here. 

It is with no small amount of satisfaction that Kylo takes in Hux’s sneer as a crack of deafening thunder shakes the very foundations of the throne room and Hux disappears of his own volition in a blinding display of flash-frozen light. 

****

Rey yelps, letting out a high pitched squeak as the very foundations of the room shake on the tail end of the most deafening clap of thunder she's ever heard, as if it had happened right next to her and not… wherever it did. 

She's dripping water everywhere, having jumped out of the tub in alarm and made herself small in the corner, half expecting to see the ceiling, the floors and walls start to spiderweb with cracks before it all came crashing down on her head, but nothing does, so Rey lifts a shaky hand to her hair to shove it out of her face and looks around, trying to get back up on quaking knees. She’ll get out of this room as fast as humanly possible and either find Mitaka or Kylo Ren, then demand she be taken home, dinner be damned. Rey scurries to the bed only to have the air knocked out of her lungs and her train of thought entirely derailed at what she finds there. 

There, spread like the skies have opened up and taken the form of luxurious fabric, lays the most beautiful gown she’s ever seen. She quickly gathers it in her hands, the air turning chilly the longer she remains farther away from the fireplace, and pulls it on over her head with ease, feeling the fabric brush against her naked, bath-warm skin in ways she would almost describe as obscene. 

She looks down at it, running her fingers down the bejeweled front, watching it glitter and shine as though the very night sky had been woven around her waist, and knows why it feels like it was made for her. Because it _was_. 

The gown looks like a much nicer, infinitely richer version of her ceremonial dress, long and sheer fabric in a deep shade of blue caressing her in ways that make her cheeks begin to flush, so soft she sighs to herself, the front dipping along her breastbone much like her own ceremony robes had, her arms bare to the chill, though her legs are thankfully not exposed by side slits. If anything, the full skirts keep her warm while tantalizingly hinting at the shape of her body without being indecent. The train falling behind her gives her a modicum of warmth at her back, and the jewels glittering about her person keep catching her eyes in a dizzying display of light. 

This is how goddesses must dress (for now that she knows Kylo Ren exists, surely there must be others beyond the god of death and the sun god), goddesses who would glide about in beautiful gowns like this one. Gowns which are certainly not appropriate for a peasant turned priestess initiate. And there is certainly no possible way that this dress should fit the cinch of her waist so neatly unless somebody had taken a close inspection of her measurements… 

As though they’d prepared for her arrival.

Her eyes narrow. 

Rey’s hands fall off the crystal stones that must surely cost the price of a small kingdom and purses her lips, grabbing the matching slippers and shoving her feet in them unceremoniously then storming out of the room without even bothering to so much as tie her hair back or braid it. A voice in her head warns her that she should stay put, that she could become lost and that it’s horrible manners to storm a host’s home without his permission, but she forges on ahead, trying her best to follow her memory on the turns Mitaka took.

By the time she takes a corner she _knows_ she’d already taken once, the candles on the sconce illuminating that particular path has burned to half their length. Rey stops, breathing deep, and just barely manages to suppress a groan of exasperation. 

She _really_ should have listened to that little voice in her head. 

Licking her lips, Rey tries the next best thing she can think of. She places her hand along a wall, following it slowly as she inches forward towards yet another dark (if plushly) decorated hall, hoping that her instincts are right. 

“Mitaka?” Rey calls out, her warm breath dissolving before her in the chill. A moment later Mitaka steps out of thin air, a massive oar in hand, looking startled to be summoned so far away from her bedroom door.

“M’Lady, what are you—”

“I got lost.” she says, a sheepish smile creeping at the corners of her mouth. Rey swears she sees his lips twitch in the beginnings of an amused smile before he quashes it, walking forward and offering her his arm. 

“Should I escort you back?” he asks, the concern gone from his voice to be replaced with an odd note of kindness. Rey shakes her head, her cheeks tinging pink at the proffered arm anyway. Nobody had ever done such a gentlemanly thing for her as to offer to escort her anywhere, and she decides that Mitaka is both a gentleman and a friend, in his own strange way.  

“I was hoping I could see your master, is he available now?” she asks instead, and Mitaka’s arm drops very slowly, the kindness replaced with a sort of resigned exhaustion that makes Rey tilt her head sideways. 

She had met plenty of people who were expressive, yet none seemed as expressive as this man. She figures he has not seen people in so long he must not remember how to guard those expressions as she had in her own cutthroat world. It makes her trust him—just a little. 

Then he looks far away into the distance, as if checking, and nods. He offers her his arm again, and this time she takes it, noting a bubble of warmth as it encases her from head to toe. Rey looks at Mitaka from the corner of her eye. So, he’s the one who had kept her warm before. She files that information away as Mitaka leads her, the clicking of his oar marking their steps as they take so many turns Rey starts getting dizzy, her ears popping from a strange pressure as though they were descending deep into the underground.

No wonder she’d gotten lost.

By the time they arrive at a massive hall, Rey’s anger has diminished. _Just_. 

It comes back in full force when Mitaka pushes at the doors and Rey realizes it’s not a hall but a _throne room_ , and far against the back wall, past a crystalline pool of water and enormous onyx pillars, on an impossibly massive throne, sits her _host_ , wearing an expression like the cat who got the milk when his eyes land on her dress.

“The Lady, M’Lord,” Mitaka announces, then shifts his weight onto his other foot as he looks back at Rey nervously. Yet Rey makes no move to step forward and Kylo only looks at her, leaving Mitaka to fidget gracelessly while he waits for orders. 

“Go,” Kylo says after another heartbeat, waving his large, gloved hand in Mitaka’s general direction. Mitaka shoots her one last glance, as though reluctant to leave her, before he scuttles off with a bow at the waist, robbing her of the bubble of warmth immediately. She almost wraps her arms around herself, only for Kylo to motion at her to approach with his index finger, sending the fire roaring right back up in her chest. 

The nerve.

But what’s she supposed to do? Stand there? So she squares her shoulders, fingers itching at her side as she forces her arms to stay there instead of wrapping around herself to stave off the chill, eyes narrowing with every soft step she takes.

For the first time, she notes how comfortable her shoes are, feeling soft and velvety beneath her toes, and she wonders why, of all things she could focus on, _this_ is the one that springs to mind. Again her brain tries to shield her from the impossibility of the situation, of her walking towards a _god_ , and she wonders if this is his doing or simply that of her own little mortal mind. Rey fights the instinct to focus on anything else but her annoyance, feeling the very dress that had made her angry brushing against her kneecaps, the fleshy softness of her inner thighs, and the gentle tightness of it at her waist. This dress was made for her, and he had been _expecting_ her.

When she finally arrives in front of him, not sparing the pool before her a glance, Rey looks up at Kylo Ren where he sits tall, proud and relaxed on his massive throne, a sense of deja vu washing over her as she remembers herself standing at the steps of a different throne, in front of a statue dedicated to the man before her.

The more things change…

“Please take me home.”

Kylo blinks owlishly at her, taking in _all_ of her. He starts his inspection at the crown of her head, faltering there as though looking for something that should be perched atop it and is missing, before following the long, damp tendrils of her hair down to her collarbones, dipping along her breastbone to her waist; taking in her bare, freckled arms and down, following the curve of her hip, obviously enjoying the view all the way down to her slippered toes before snapping right back up to meet her eyes. The sharpness of that stare freezes her in place.

“So soon?”

Rey licks her lips, considering her words even as her skin pebbles with chills running up and down her spine, unable to pinpoint whether the shivers are from the cold or from his scrutiny. Then something strange happened next: The room warms. Not like when she was within Mitaka’s proximity, a small shield against the chill. No, the _whole_ of the throne room warms, and Rey spies his fingers twirling slowly at his side, in tandem with the gentle air disturbing the baby hairs at her temples. And still she shivers. 

So, this is his power. He exerts it so lazily, so carelessly, as though shifting the whole atmospheric temperature for her comfort is nothing at all, an afterthought, unlike Mitaka's own exertion just to make a small bubble about her. She weighs her words far more carefully this time while pinned down under the intensity of his gaze. 

“I thank you for the gown, it is deeply appreciated.” Rey’s voice resonates, and for a moment she hears something like chimes emitting from the very water. She frowns and looks at that immense pool, seeing ripples forming and shining a faint blue, and Kylo’s lips quirk in an amused smirk, continuing his minute, languorous circular twirling with middle and forefinger. Under her, her skirts move gently, as though she were being swayed in a soft dance.

“Will you not join me for the day’s last meal? Mitaka has outdone himself,” he says, clearly amused, and Rey feels both a growing sense of dread and a primal desire to wipe that smirk off his face. 

“I’m fine, thank you.”

Just as she’s schooled her face to a carefully arranged mixture of sternness and politeness, her body betrays her, her stomach grumbling loudly just as it had done with Mitaka. Rey startles, jumping slightly at how _loud_ it sounds in a nearly empty, cavernous throne room, her shoulders jerking upward, caught in her lie. 

Kylo’s eyes fall down to her stomach, to the expanse of diamonds and other precious stones adorning her like a most prized possession, though this time his blink is just as startled as hers. He must have found it ridiculously funny, for in the next breath he’s throwing his head back and roaring with laughter. Which only makes things worse, because now Rey’s cheeks have taken on the color of ripe strawberries, and she wishes the marble floor would open her up and swallow her whole. She looks down at it, glaring because it does not do as she wishes.

When she finally looks up it is to find that Kylo Ren is slowly approaching, taking the steps down with such grace it’s startling, and though her brain keeps yelling that she should _move_ , her feet are rooted in their spot. Kylo shakes his head, head tilted, and _tsks_.

“You do not need to fear me, I simply would like you to join me for a meal. Please.” He gives her a small smile. That smile feels… not forced, per se. No. Rey thinks it feels disused. Like Mitaka’s. Like he hasn’t had much reason to smile for a long time now, either, but he’s trying. Just like a god saying the word _please_. A tendril of pity curls about her chest. 

Perhaps he’s lonely. 

Despite how ridiculous it sounds, her logic rings of truth. So Rey stops gnawing on her lower lip and, with one last look at the floor—which has yet to open up and end her misery—she nods. 

This time there is no swagger. There’s no flashy disappearing and reappearing. No extending of a hand with a glint in his eye. This time, Rey only registers curious, hopeful excitement in Kylo’s countenance. He offers her his arm and patiently waits for her to take it, then guides her out of the throne room and back into the maze that is his home. 

“Did you enjoy your rest?” he asks, eyes fixed ahead. 

Before she can stop it, a snort escapes her, and Kylo’s brows rise. She curses inwardly, reminding herself that staying on this god’s good graces should be the top of her survival priorities. She’s not a fool. There’s a big power imbalance here, one in which he holds all the power. He can crush her like a bug, and...well… she may be a very well dressed bug at the moment, but she’s still easily crushed. So Rey clears her throat, giving him a small smile.

“I mean, yes. I did enjoy it, thank you…” then, because she just can’t help herself, “until the ceiling nearly came crashing down on me, that is. What _was_ that noise?”

“What noise?” Kylo asks, directing her down a hallway. He seems to _glide_. She can hear her skirts, and her slippered steps no matter how soft they are, but she hears nothing from him. No rustle of his cloak, no click of his heels here. Rey frowns, bringing her mind back to the question.

“That… that clap of _thunder_.” Rey’s statement sounds more like a question than a statement. She’s got no way of explaining it. Beside her, Kylo smiles, turning twinkling eyes on her. 

“It was nothing you should concern yourself with,” he says, “the ceiling would certainly not fall on your head.” 

“How are you so sure?” she asks. It had certainly _felt_ as though it would, the whole of her surroundings seeming to quake under some massive power. Then it had gone as quickly as it had come.

“Hux can’t bring down _my_ domain.”

“Hux?”

Who in the Light is _Hux_?

Kylo’s lips turn down and his nostrils twitch as though he’s smelled something sour, and Rey feels the thick muscle beneath her fingertips twitch before he once again forces himself to relax. 

“No one important.” 

He turns her down another path, then _finally_ Rey spies the dining table, looking comically small in a hall that seems made more for large congregations than a table for two. And yet the whole thing is laden with food, the warm light of candlelight — _normal_ candlelight, for once—glinting off the crystal glasses and silver plates, off the silver pitchers bloated with chilled honey wine, and enough food set out for ten. Then, on the side, Rey spies a small bowl of fruit she recognizes from her own world.

She smiles, making a mental note to thank Mitaka for his consideration if she ever sees him again, and takes her seat by it, opposite Kylo. The two of them stare at each other awkwardly for a moment as he waits for her to load her plate and Rey, trying her best to remain a good guest despite her circumstances, waits for _him_ to begin. 

When their weird sort of sidestepping dance for the sake of niceties stretches on for too long, Kylo lets out a soft, exasperated huff, looking at the food before arching an eyebrow at her small fruit bowl at her side. It is obvious he’s not used to this sort of thing, and in truth, neither is she. How does one even behave in front of… well, whatever he is.

He shakes his head, dropping his eyes to his gloves as he slowly starts taking them off. As for Rey, she’s forgotten about the food, curiosity finally getting the best of her as she watches the motion. Would his hands be rough and odd beneath the leather, like Mitaka’s? 

Finger by excruciating finger the gloves come off, and Rey’s surprised to find that they look just fine. Normal, like her own, though much bigger. Somehow, she’d expected his hands to be made up of the same sort of darkness that seems to prevail around him, in the sheen of his hair and pitch black of his robes. She watches him set the gloves to the side, picking up bread and cheese and dropping it on his plate before grabbing what she can only assume is strangely shaped fruit. 

Kylo look up, having caught her watching, and arches an eyebrow. That sends her loading up her plate fast, Kylo turning back to his fruit as he splits it open. Rey’s hand hovers over a strawberry as the glint of candlelight catches on the blood red pearls encased in fleshy white, something in her suddenly _craving_. At the unadulterated look of want on her face, Kylo slowly extends half of it to her, beads of juice sitting on his thumb while he studies her face closely. She looks up at him, and at that very moment, something primal in her rears its head.

She remembers Mitaka’s words to only eat what he’d set aside for her, and snatches her hand back.

****

He had had no intention of offering her the seeds of immortal blood from the pomegranate, or any other food from his world. He had given Mitaka instructions to prepare food she could eat, from her own world, so there may be no ties to him should she decide to leave, and leave she had wanted to. He may be curious, but he wasn’t a beast to keep her against her will.

But then he’d seen her face, and warmth pooled low in his belly at the way her lips parted and a soft, warm puff of air escaped, eyes glinting with a type of hunger that was not mortal in kind. So he offers, the allure too great to stop his limbs from moving forward, half a pomegranate cupped and dripping between his fingertips. 

What would she do, he wonders? Would she take it? How many seeds would she eat? His mind both reaches for that promise and reels back from it. He may be curious, but Hux had been right. She does not belong here, and Kylo had only wanted her close long enough to satiate his curiosity about her fire, her spirit, yet…

The temptress could be tempted. 

That opens a whole world of possibility he had not, in truth, openly considered. What would it be like to have her here in a more permanent manner? To have a living, breathing mortal within his walls. Would she laugh, and would her laughter light whatever room she’s in? Would the very stones of his world shake, quaking in fear in her anger? Oh, he’d tasted her anger. It is a beautiful thing. What would having _life_ amongst all the death taste like? 

He licks his lips, waiting, and feels an unconscionable and inexplicable amount of disappointment when she jerks her hand back. 

They eat in silence, Rey quietly nibbling on her assortment of mortal foods while Kylo watches her curiously. She may not have taken the seeds, but she’d certainly planted some of her own, and he can’t shake the images he now turns in his mind of her walking down his halls, sharing his meals, perhaps even—

He’s so lost in his thoughts, in his made up world of confusing yet enticing fantasies, that he doesn’t notice Rey pushing her bowl away, too busy staring at her lashes until she clears her throat.

“I thank you for the meal.”

The pang of disappointment comes back tenfold. He inclines his head at her thanks, though he feels less than thrilled by it all having been done so soon. He had questions to ask. Questions about her, about why she wouldn’t believe he even existed, about why she kept visiting, and her kindness, and her mortal life. Instead, he asks,

“Would you like more?” 

Rey shakes her head, opening her mouth instead to deliver what he knew had been coming.

“I would like to return now.”

The disappointment grows. He had wanted to see in her head, learn things about her, dig into why he’s so drawn to her when he barely knows her— _her_ , a low little human with a lifespan that would expire before he could properly blink. But he’d been a monster in his life once, back when he was not holed up _here_ , and she had shone so brightly, he refuses to put that light out. So instead he buys himself some time. 

“Are you not comfortable?”

The way the little slip of a mortal turns from offering dignified politeness to giving him a sharp, intelligent yet heated glare makes his shoulderblades twitch unconsciously. 

“I would be more comfortable back home.”

His incredulity skyrockets. 

“You have at your disposal a whole _realm_ , something no other human has ever seen, and its lord giving you the chance to remain a little longer and explore it... and you'd like to go back into that dark stone temple and to those people who mistreated you?” he asks, perplexed yet baring his teeth at the last few words. Why she’d go back to _that_ is beyond him.

“Back to what’s _normal_ to me,” she says, pursing her lips. “I do not belong here.”

Well, he cannot deny _that_. But… 

“You could, if you wished to. It would certainly be better than there, where you were all but a prisoner in name.”

Rey’s eyes narrow further, and perhaps he has made a mistake to speak so soon, to display his hand so early. And the little flower is perceptive. More perceptive of his own mind, perhaps, than he is. 

“Am I to be a prisoner _here_?” 

The question feels like a slap, and Kylo’s head rears back slightly at it. 

_“_ No. You’re my guest.” 

Rey nods, then scrapes her chair back, hands buried in her skirts and Kylo almost doesn’t hear what she’s about to say because he’s too busy looking up at her. When was the last time he looked _up_ at anybody? Especially something this lovely.

_What has gotten into you?_

“Then, as your guest, I’d like to leave now.”

The beast that roared inside of him when he’d learned she’d gone missing pokes its angry nose up in the air again, smelling the disquiet and reveling in it. She’s alive and warm and full of life, and for some unimaginable reason she’s turned his entire realm upside down in the small amount of time since he’d become aware of her existence. He’d very much dislike to have that walk out of his depressingly monotonous and dark immortal life. 

She could stay. She _should_ stay. _He could_ make _her stay_. 

No. No. She’s not a prisoner, and he would not make himself a monster in her eyes. Not any more than he already has.

Not that it matters, anyway. He thinks back to her fragile little lifespan. 

Since when had he developed _conflicting feelings_? Over a _human_? It was wholly uncomfortable. 

So instead he gets up from his chair and comes around it to stand to his full height in front of her, practically looming. She’s so small, so slender. He could easily wrap up her whole waist by splaying his hands around it. Could easily snap her in two. He has to angle his chin down to be able to look at her fully. He must be gentle, careful. 

He has to admit, part of him had wanted her reaction. Part of him had wanted to prove her wrong, to see her expression when she saw her world turned upside down, when the _old man_ turned out to be...well… not what she imagined. He had relished that idea, and relished the banter, and relished the _moment_ —even her shoving him, if he’s being honest—and he had wanted _her_ , the brave little mouse, the curious little flower amongst the poppies. He had wanted her spirit, but not against her will. Well, seems like Hux would get what he wanted _anyway_. He stretches out his hand, warm and naked and seeking. 

“I will return you to your home.” he says, eyes dancing on hers, “With one condition.”

Rey stares at him, mistrust writ large across her face while her fingers hover in midair, almost to his. “What’s that?” 

“That you visit that little hovel of a temple again, if you can.”

He would watch her from afar, and would have to content himself with that. It was a rare sort of gift to have _somebody_ not be afraid of him, and not just because they despised him like Hux does, and he will preserve it to the best of his ability. Rey blinks rapidly, then her eyes warm, and he watches as something seems to _click_ in her mind. For the first time, she offers him a bright, genuine smile.

“I promise, old man.”

Kylo bites back a snort, lacing his fingers through hers, and in the next breath, they wink out of existence. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, she's going back... for now. Surely it can't be this easy ;) surely. 
> 
> As for the Mythos: There are hints of Eve and the apple there, if you look close enough ;) and to those wondering why the water chimed when Rey thanked him for the dress... it's because she _lied_.
> 
> I am an awful human being who keeps updating her fics at fuck-o-clock in the middle of the night/morning, but I hope whenever you get to read this, that you enjoyed it <3 thank you for sticking it out with me and for your patience. 
> 
> The dress Rey is wearing is [the right one in this gif set.](https://lucidlucy.tumblr.com/post/159837278250/chandelyer-zuhair-murad-fall-2015-couture%22)


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We are baaackkk! Wow, it took so long. Thank you all for all the love you have been showering this fic with since the release of TLJ. It's taken me a while to get back to the swing of writing, and from now on it might be slow again until I find my footing, but know that I appreciate each and every comment and kudo and lovely message you send me on tumble @lucidlucy. Ilu all, you keep me writing.

She appears at the doors of the God of Death’s temple, feet landing gently on the top step of the sun scorched stairs, Kylo Ren having deposited her there with great care, but he is nowhere to be seen. The only fading hint of his existence is the parting brush of warm, large fingers against her own before she’s truly alone, the sun beating down on her cheeks and arid desert air caressing her arms. Despite the heat, the hair on her arms raise at the inconceivability of it all, her internal clock informing her it should be nighttime. She had _left_ , in a matter of speaking, during the night. Yet it looks to be about mid-day, if the heat is any sign, and she’s got a nagging feeling it isn’t the same _day._ Maybe not even the same week.

Rey inspects her surroundings carefully until she’s facing the giant doors. They’ve been thrown wide open, not a soul about as far as she can see. She hadn’t dreamed it. Her mind returns to a dark figure standing half cloaked in shadow, senses askew from the sun at her back while her biology demands she be steeped in moonless night; her recollection rooting her to that exact moment he stepped up close, revealing his features to her by torchlight. The soft breeze she feels at the nape of her neck brings forth a memory of empty halls and cold drafts, and plush silver threaded rugs and heatless blue torch fire. 

She shakes herself out of her stupor a moment later, the sun at her back grounding her once more in the present, though that only lasts until she turns away from the temple, the stony gaze of Death’s statue searing a hole into her shoulder blades. Rey squints hard, staring off into the distance, unable to look at herself even though it’s hard to ignore the blinding glint of jewels cascading down her gown even through pinched lashes. Walking into the town dressed like this would be a quick way to get herself mugged, but she has no other options. Not unless she wants to walk in naked, which is definitely _not_ an option.

At least this time she’s got shoes, and she’s more modestly covered than she’d been prior to this whole mess. Rey digs her pearly teeth into the fleshy hills of her bottom lip and takes a deep breath, fists clenched at her side as she takes her first brave step away from the doors and towards the village.

Her first order of business is to find Finn, her need to inform him that she’s fine outranking all else, the thought of her friend pacing frantically on her behalf—something she _knows_ he’s prone to doing— both warming her heart and pinching her lips tight with disapproval. That, and the fact that she needs to find out how long she’s been gone, and while she’s sure Finn will think she’s crazy for even asking, at least he’s a friendly face. 

Taking the roundabout way takes longer, but it’s easier to remain unseen as she skirts the town and heads for the small hut on the other edge of the village where she might have a chance at finding him. Finn had found the little makeshift home abandoned years ago, having rebuilt it with his meager earnings and using it as his home away from home at the temple once he was old enough to leave, and though it’s late in the day Rey might just find him there.

It takes a while, her beautiful slippers getting dustier with every step, their brilliant color fading under a same thin layer of the same pale yellow dust that clings to everything else in the hole that is Jakku. Rey spares a moment of sadness for the slippers. They are fine shoes, finer than anything she’s ever owned and ever will own, and once Jakku’s grit clings onto something it never lets go. By the time she arrives at Finn’s hut, the dust has started crawling up the hem of her beautiful gown. Rey idly wonders if Ren would be insulted by this before she pushes the small wooden door open, sticking her head in.

“Finn?” she calls out. “Are you home?” 

Her question is met with silence, cut through every once in a while by the sound of fluttering sound of wings from small insects attempting to hide from the heat and sleep. Rey sighs then closes the door gently, turning around to shield her eyes from the sun again. For some reason it feels unnaturally hot, and that’s saying something. She looks up towards cloudless, painfully blue skies, letting her mind wander. If the god of death indeed exists, does that mean the sun god does as well? And if so, why hadn’t he sent some rain already? Was the whole town’s offering not enough? A surprising sense of indignation rolls through her at the thought, glaring at the skies. Above her, a certain redheaded god of the skies snorts lightly. He’d heard her, just like he’d been hearing everyone else lately, even if hers hadn’t been a prayer so much as anger directed his way, but by then Rey is already too busy smoothing her hands down her dress to try and beat the dust back out. 

She finally turns away from Finn’s door, taking a deep breath and beginning her trek back, putting one step in front of the other until she’s back in the immediate edge of the town, the streets unusually quiet. She shouldn’t be surprised, really. The heat is at its worst, and anyone who doesn’t need to absolutely be out and about trying to make a coin is hiding, possibly sleeping, and she finds herself more than a little annoyed at the fact. It’s unfounded annoyance, and rather reckless of her, really. She should be _happy_ there is nobody about, because she can hardly imagine what she’d do if she ran into any of the idiots who practically kidnapped her and tossed her to await her seemingly inevitable death. Had it not been for Death himself… she wants to laugh at the absurdity of the situation. 

But the streets don’t remain empty for long, and just as she’s spotting a familiar satchel usually filled up with medicinal herbs and attached like a third limb to Finn, curious eyes are drawn like vultures to the blinding shine of the jewels at her waist. 

“Finn!” she calls out, waving her hand and picking up her pace, a smile blooming on her face when she sees him turn from where he’d been haggling with a vendor again. So focused is she that she misses the covetous eyes of the small crowd forming, people pulling others out to point at Rey as she seems to glide forward, shining brighter than the sun itself in her fineries. Until Finn’s look of surprise morphs into one of relief then once again shifts, and this time she recognizes fear in those wide dark eyes of his, mouth agape and hands dropping the vials he’d been holding.

“Finn!” she calls again, frowning. “What’s wrong? It’s me! It’s—“ Finn’s small head shake becomes agitated signaling for her to stop, except the words are already out of her mouth before she realizes what he’s trying to do. “—Rey! I got out!”

“No,” she hears Finn say as his eyes train over her shoulder, before it turns into a shout, and she just has enough time to turn her head with a confused frown on her face when the first stone flies. “NO, NO, NO!”

It only takes a second, and then Finn is running towards her while understanding dawns on the crowd who had only moments ago been eyeing her for her jewels and they stop seeing her as an absurdly wealthy newcomer and instead put face to the name. She’s the apprentice that was sacrificed, and she’s alive. She escaped not once, but _twice_. 

The first stone hits her on the bicep. Rey hisses and swivels, baring her teeth just as another stone, this time flung not tentatively to see if she’s really there, but with force and fear and anger and a shout of _witch!_ hits her shoulder. The crowd starts getting bigger, the shout of a witch amongst the masses rousing anyone and everyone, people poking heads out of shutterless windows and opening wooden doors, rousing from behind vendor stalls and wandering out of alleys, and by the time Finn has reached her she’s facing the beginnings of a mob.

 _Not this again_ , is the only thought she can spare before the stones _really_ start flying. Accusations of witchcraft and of cheating Death and of her bringing doom upon them, blame for the rain that’s not coming, and even a stillbirth that apparently happened only two days ago on her head, and by the time Finn’s grabbing her hand and screaming _shit, shit, shit_ Rey’s had at least a dozen stones thrown in her direction and at least two have found their target. Her temple’s trickling blood and the air’s been knocked out of her with the one that found her stomach, leaving her with just enough air to let herself be dragged away without toppling over herself.

Finn yanks her through winding alleys, letting out very un-Finn-like curses every other step, his iron grip unrelenting on her fingers, him pulling her with intense focus while Rey tries to keep up as she regains her ability to breathe. She manages to avoid not tripping over a chunk of red rock then looks behind her as the shouts intensify, and upward past the low ceilings of homes haphazardly stacked and squeezed together to form roads that can barely handle two across, hard steps chipped out of the very earth and weathered by the many generations of poor people that have walked them weaving up then down in a dizzying path. She spots the temple domes, brilliant and shining in the sun, and tries to pull at Finn to get his attention.

“No, Finn—Wait, Finn, I have to go to the temple!” 

Finn, who doesn’t slow his step even as he pulls her extra hard into a shadowy little hole in the wall, one of the few damp spots she’s ever seen on Jakku, hisses over his shoulder, “And do what? Do you think the temple will be any better?! They’re calling you a witch, Rey! How did you even get out? No,” he huffs, grabbing her by the waist and hoisting her so she can step up over a wall, grunting with the effort as she steps on his shoulder then flings herself over before he follows. When he lands, feet first with a hard thud, he gives her a serious once over before shaking his head. “No, don’t even tell me. Not here. Come on.”

Just as Finn finishes that sentence Rey’s knees knock into each other, a strange vibration working its way up all the way from her toes to her stomach as the ground started to shake.

 

****

 

Kylo Ren was pissed off and ready to unleash no small amount of pain on a certain small town in a backwater little hole of a planet, where _one_ particular girl he had become suddenly, violently attached to had just been attacked, when he heard that same girl’s voice shouting his name.

By the time he finishes stomping his way back to the throne room, hands fisted at his side and a murderous, unearthly golden glow to his eyes, ripping with clawed fingers through the air so as to reveal the image of Rey in the pool of divine water at the foot of his throne, Rey’s voice has gone from questioning to annoyed.

“ _Seriously! Where_ is he when I need him?” she shouts, looking up, and he realizes she’s staring at the statue in his temple. 

Behind her stands a nervous, fidgety man Kylo recognizes as her friend, who keeps looking about like he wants to run and the only thing keeping him there is Rey while he continues shifting his weight and looking at her like she’s gone absolutely mad. Kylo’s ire cools down enough then for his vision to clear and sharpen, and refocuses on her, Rey pacing a small, tight line at the bottom of the steps. She’s alright, it seems, if her exasperation is anything to go by. 

“ _Rey, maybe we should just…”_ the friend, Finn, says. Rey throws him an impatient glare before once again looking up. 

“ _Hey! Can you hear me?”_

It’s amazing how just listening to her voice seems to drag him back from the precipice. Kylo narrows his eyes, studying her more closely, and another wave of hot, acidic anger start to boil in him when he spots the purpling bruise on her shoulder, her haggard appearance, the trickle of blood falling from her sweaty, dust-caked temple. 

With a shake of his head, Kylo disappears in a cloud of black smoke, only to pop back into existence in front of his visitors. Rey jumps and Finn screams and Kylo tries his best to smother the tiny uptick of his lips at the corner, narrowing his eyes instead and standing to full height a few steps above them. 

“R-Rey, is-is-is that—“ Finn takes a step back, then another, while Rey ignores him in favor of looking up at Kylo, swallowing hard. “Rey, what have you done?”

“I need your help,” Rey says, and Kylo smiles. 

Kylo takes the steps two at a time and holds out his hand to her. He doesn’t need to say anything this time. She understands. Finn, who had scrambled back and tripped on the smooth marble sits up and stares, mouth agape and fear vibrating in his eyes as he takes in the sight before him. Unlike Rey, _he_ had always been a believer, and the sight of the God of Death makes him want to hide. Rey seems to have no such compulsions, however, as she steps up and valiantly stares Death in his eyes and takes his hand. 

Finn screams when Rey disappears, but she can’t hear him, the void she’s being sucked into too empty for the sound of Finn’s cry to carry and follow her, and in the next blink, she’s standing inside Kylo Ren’s throne room. She stumbles, and Kylo catches her about the waist, setting her right as he looks down at her with an arched eyebrow that screams _I told you so_ as he studies her, gloved fingers reaching up gently to wipe a streak of blood from her temple.

He rubs it between the first two of his fingers and thumb, eyes narrowing and beginning to glow, the viscous half-dried substance sticking to the leather, and he licks his lips before he once again focuses on her. He doesn’t really need to say a thing, his displeasure is clear in his features, but he’s surprisingly pleased that she doesn’t flinch away from it at all, nor from the touch of his other hand firmly planted on the back of her waist where he’d reached out earlier. 

“So, did you find what you needed?” he asks, voice rumbling in his chest, and Rey breathes in deeply. There would be no point lying to him. He could look in her head if he wanted, and Rey, although not quite intimidated, still holds a healthy reverence for a creature much older and much more powerful than she.

“No, I did not,” she says, all honesty. Kylo tilts his head, and she rushes to continue. “Was that you?”

“Was what me?”

“The ground. I felt it shaking.”

Kylo smiles, eyes sharpening on her mouth as she talks, sucking in her breath and gnawing at those perfect lips, and he finds that he wants to bite them. The longer he holds onto her the warmer his hand becomes, and the swifter said warmth spreads to limbs that had been cold for hundreds of years. 

“Very perceptive of you.” 

Rey narrows her eyes, then shakes her head, bringing herself out of whatever angry stupor she was about to let herself fall into, then steps back and sizes him up. “Yes, well. There was no need for that.”

“Oh?”

“No,” she continues stubbornly before deflating, “but I do need your help.”

“What kind of help?” he asks, head tilted sideways as he considers her. Her dress has gotten dusty from her trip to the above, and her shoes are ruined. He tsks quietly, but waits for her to continue.

“I just—I’m not sure, actually. Some way to…” she looks about, as if hoping the room will give her an answer, and only then does she take in her surroundings. The air from her lungs escapes her as Rey breathes out a soft “oh…” walking away from him in a trance, hands splayed at her sides, feeling the undercurrent of cold air passing through while she walks towards the throne. He watches her go, turning carefully to track her with his eyes, head tilting the opposite direction at how easily she fits in with all of it, the drapings, the pool of the Styx, his throne. Her eyes are on his throne. He wonders if she’ll approach.

She does. Rey takes a tentative step up the first stairstep, then another, and when she comes to stand in front of the throne her fingers reach out gingerly until she remembers where she is and what she’s doing, hand frozen in mid air as she turns to look at him. He’s unsure of whether she’s asking for permission, or feeling nervous at being caught in the act, but he gives her a small nod nonetheless and her shoulders relax, and Rey’s fingers touch the throne gently, reverently, and it’s as though he’s feeling the caress in his bones. 

“So this is where it all happens,” she says as Kylo walks up silently to stand behind her, hands coming to rest on her shoulders so he can turn her around and return them to their previous conversation. She shudders in his grasp and her lashes flutter, then she tenses, so he soothes her with gentle strokes. It leaves a bloody smear there. He’ll clean it up later, gently. 

“Where all what happens?”

“The… the _judgement_ , I guess. The high priestess said Lord Death does that.”

Lord Death. It has such a nice ring coming from her. He chuckles. “There is more to it than simply passing _judgment_ , I’m afraid.” He lets his finger run over the edge of her dress at her shoulder and Rey shivers, “Look at you. All dirtied and bloodied after I took such pains to make sure you dazzled.” 

“I didn’t ask you to,” she balks. Kylo smiles a sardonic little smile. 

“Nonetheless I did, and it was my honor to, though I’m afraid we might have to do it again,” he says, eyes falling onto the blood smears and the purple bruises, his anger once again flaring harsh and bright and hot inside him, though he manages to keep it contained. “You said you wanted help?”

“I did,” Rey breathes, once again remembering who she’s talking to. Kylo’s torn between enjoying that reaction and wishing she would relax already.

“What kind of help?”

“I want to be able to reach the Priestess,” Rey explains, “at the temple.”

Kylo turns to stone, and when his grip becomes too hard on her shoulders and Rey winces, he removes them entirely and glares at her. “You little humans… you mean getting stoned once wasn’t enough? Why would you want to go back?”

“I have things to— actually, you know what, I don’t need to explain myself to you about it.” Rey crosses her arms in front of her chest, reminding him firmly that she is not one to be bullied as she glares up at him with a stiff lip. “I would _like_ your help in getting me there unharmed, but if you refuse, I can do it just as well without your aid.”

Impertinent little wench, and yet such a lovely one. “You’re not even half afraid of what might happen if I say no, are you?”

“No.”

Kylo snorts. Of course not. “Very well then, I will help. And what do I get in return?”

At this, Rey turns pale and her limbs grow leaden. She stares at him, and Kylo’s lips twitch. “Well?”

“Why would you want something in return?”

Kylo laughs. “We gods do not simply _give_ without expecting something in return. Or do you think that we simply ascended by virtue of giving, rather than taking?”

“That doesn’t make me feel any better about this,” Rey mumbles, and Kylo chuckles.  

“Relax, little flower. I’m not asking for your soul.” He says, eyeing her, but finding that the thought of her soul, naked and devoid of her physical form, appearing in front of him for judgement someday somehow makes him… sad, almost. He pushes the thought away, arching an eyebrow. “What I ask for will probably be much, much easier to grant by comparison.”

“What would you like in return?” she asks, wary as she laces her fingers together in front of her, yet calculating. She’s willing to barter for his help. Brave little flower. 

“I haven’t decided yet,” he says, “it depends on what _you_ want.” 

“Safe passage,” Rey replies immediately. “Just to the temple and out of it, that’s all I need.”

Kylo takes in her words, considers, then spends a minute making a show of deliberating. He can offer her safe passage just about anywhere, or could easily send her with Mitaka to act as her shield, but that would be too easy, and where is the fun in that? He is a selfish creature, as all gods are wont to be.

“Alright,” he agrees, and Rey’s shoulders melt with relief. “And in exchange, I will ask for your time.” 

Rey blinks up at him, confusion streaking past her features before she looks about the throne room again. “My time? What use could you possibly have for my time? I’m not—“

“Do you agree?” he asks, and Rey purses her lips. She had never had to _negotiate_ with him for something as vague as her time. “My protection for your company.”

Rey huffs, and he almost laughs again when she balks. “That sounds awfully vague. How much of my time?” 

Oh, she is good. Fine, he’d indulge her. He holds out his hand to her again. “Let’s compromise. I will grant you protection, which will allow you to do as you see fit then return—though I hardly can see why you’d go back to that rabble with murderous tendencies against you—and upon your return, we shall discuss the specifics of how much time you’re willing to give me.” 

Rey stops, studying him closely, and Kylo allows her the benefit of doing so. Her eyes narrow, long lashes shadowing beautiful hazel eyes as if trying to spot the trap, lips pursed into a tight line, “Safe passage first.”

“Of course.”

She nods. Apparently whatever it is she needs in the world of the living is important enough to her that she’s willing to gamble with the Taker of Souls, and Kylo’s chuckle is an earthy rumble when she places her hand in his with all the ginger touch of an easily spooked cat. He wraps his fingers around them and then gently tugs her forward, and Rey squeaks the moment his other hand lifts, buying itself in her hair and gently grabbing the back of her neck. There is fear there, for a second, until she notices his eyes have locked on her lips, and then she’s breathing shallow, not that Kylo gives her enough time to draw too many breaths.

“I’ll do you one better, little flower.” His lips lock on hers and he inhales, feeling the essence of her life on the taste of her lips, on the tip of her tongue, swallowing it with a touch starved hunger and madness that makes him want to consume, consume, _consume—_

 _—_ Then he breathes back out, and from his very lungs comes _his_ essence, his power, entering her body and rushing through her veins, into her bones, blanketing itself over her skin like a veil of electricity before it calms and becomes a caress running from the tips of her hair to the tips of her toes, her body lifting with his power from the floor until she’s at his level, suspended there by the supernatural, skirts fluttering about her before gently settling as her feet touch the ground once more. 

And still he kisses her, gently, tenderly, working her back down through the shocks that leave her shivering and shaking, until she’s calmed down and a sigh escapes her, her breathing as ragged as if she’d ran a mile. He pulls back slowly on that sigh, watching her kiss-swollen lips part for him again, watches her inhale deeply and open her eyes, a power drunk look to them that forces him to bite the lining of his cheek to keep from grinning like an idiot at how lovely she looks, keeps him from dipping back in for more. 

“What was that?” she breathes out. Kylo gently touches her jawline, stroking it with his thumb before letting it go.

“A God’s Aegis,” he says. “My power. My protection. As long as you are tied to me, nothing can hurt you, little flower. Wasn't that what you wanted?” 

 "Was that necessary?" she asks, cheeks turning a raging shade of red, the next words are barely above a whisper. "That was my first kiss."

Oh, but if he could be any more smug... somehow knowing that only makes him gladder to have done it. Gods are selfish by nature, after all. She doesn't look upset as much as baffled and thoroughly embarrassed, and through that small link he's created, he feels her body tingle rather pleasantly, and swallows the possessive sound threatening to work its way up his diaphragm. 

"I told you, we gods don't do anything for nothing," he tucks her hair behind her ear, watching the magic and power that now resides inside of her clearing the blood at her temple and stitching the open wound as if reversing the event. "And it was a far more pleasant way to go about it than the usual blood ritual, don't you think?"

She blushes harder. He caresses her cheek, and with the faint blue glow of  _him_ inside of her, the small aura of protection and power, Kylo can easily picture a crown atop her head. Suddenly the image becomes very difficult to erase from his mind, leaving a pleasant sensation spiraling down his spine. "Yes," he whispers to himself. "Very pleasant indeed." 


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so, so much for all the love you gave the last chapter! I'm going to be slowly answering (and sorry if it's taken so long! slow and steady wins the race?) but wanted to give a general thank you. I did not expect such a warm welcome and for this fic to reach 1600 kudos in a matter of days because of it, and I'm forever thankful.
> 
> A shorter chapter than my usual fare ahead, but felt like a good place to pause before we get into a whole bunch of fascinating stuff lol.

Rey’s body is still reeling from her first kiss. Her hands, unbeknownst to her, have found themselves clinging onto the luxurious fabric of her host’s cloak, close to the silver clasps, just over his heart. She can’t feel a heartbeat there, not that she would care to look for one. She’s too busy with her own.

Her mind still feels fuzzy, the electrical charge coursing through her veins making it hard for her to focus on any one part of her anatomy. Everything tingles, starting at the back of her neck and rushing down, an uncomfortable yet exhilarating heat razing through her nerves only to whirlpool in her lower belly, churning, tugging, before continuing down all the way to her toes. Her eyes attempt to refocus from behind the glaze of power that threatens to rewire her synapses, and when Rey finally takes in a deep breath and the room begins to clear, she finds that she is still being held. 

She licks her lips, the taste of the man holding her lingering on her lips, an indescribable mixture of a rich, dark sweetness that reminds her of the most luxurious of wines and… something. Something she can’t place. There’s the ghost feeling of his tongue coaxing hers that still lingers, of soft cool lips warming against hers, the possessive rumble he had inadvertently allowed to flourish from his chest still vibrating within her own. Rey blinks a few times, trying to dispel the fog, and when she speaks her voice is barely a croaked whisper.

“What was that?”  

Kylo immediately soothes her, now warm fingers tracing a path down her jawline and she thinks she detects a small, satisfied twitch to his mouth. 

“A God’s Aegis,” he purrs, and Rey feels the stirrings of that whirlpool low in her stomach begin to press against her spine, as if he’d breathed imagined oceans into her that now responded to his voice alone. “My power. My protection. As long as you are tied to me, nothing can hurt you, little flower. Wasn’t that what you wanted?”

 _Is it_? She asks herself, the question chased away as another skitters in quick on its heels. _Tied to him? Tied how?_

But she’s still kiss drunk and it’s hard to concentrate on the finer details, so instead her mouth works ahead of her brain, cheeks heating up uncomfortably at the realization of what he’d taken from her. “Was that Necessary? That was my first kiss…”

And _now_ she _can_  see that he's a smug bastard. His facial expression doesn’t shift, its placidity firmly in place, but his shoulders square further than she thought was possible for an already imposing figure, the straightening of his posture shifting the room on its axis and suddenly taking up all of the space, leaving her just enough room to breathe. She’s in trouble. Rey barely hears the end of his sentence. 

“—It was a far more pleasant way to go about it than the usual blood ritual, don’t you think?”

Well, she can’t _quite_ disagree with that. Her body, still coming down from the high, is certainly eager to voice its assent as well. She flushes, and he notices, the words he speaks next spoken at her though she’s almost certain that he’s not speaking _to_ her. “Yes, very pleasant indeed.” 

His fingers caress her cheek still, as soft as a feather’s touch, his other arm firmly wrapped around her waist, and Rey takes a deep breath that rattles her bones. She needs to put distance between them. Perhaps if she does, her body might stop behaving as though he’d placed a spell on her, responding to the most minute of his commands for attention. On the exhale, Rey takes a step back. That seems to bring him back from whatever other dimension his thoughts had traveled to, and he tilts his head sideways, waiting on her to speak.

“Right,” Rey says, clearing her throat and swallowing compulsively as she looks down at her toes to avoid his gaze, only prompting him to follow hers down until he once again _tsks_. 

The sound makes her flinch internally. She had ruined something he had so thoughtfully given. Weren’t gods usually offended in the stories when their gifts were ruined? Would he be? This was all so very new, so much uncharted territory in which she’s the prey, not the predator, and no means of defending herself. Looking at her shoes, it feels as though she were the mouse being toyed with before being devoured, and the alarming thought continues to war with the tiny tremors still running deliciously down her spine. He had managed to completely confuse her internal compass with a single kiss. Rey licks her lips again, the act of wetting them having become a compulsion. She’s losing the taste of him by now. 

“Right,” she repeats. “I…” she stops, feeling Kylo watching her again with what is no doubt silent amusement. “I should be going now.”

Kylo hums. Rey dusts the front of her dress nervously, cringing as the motion brings up a cloud of pale dust that makes him chuckle.

 “Not quite.” He says, once again moving to eat away the distance she had placed between them, a finger lifting to grab a sodden strand of hair. His… Aegis—his power—had healed the wounds, but there was still blood matted into her hair, dust still clinging to her as if afraid to let go. “First we will rectify this,” he promises, and the look in his eyes promises rectification for more than just her appearance, “and make sure this time they do not dare lay a finger on you.”

Rey frowns, biting down hard on her cheek to keep from once again licking at her lower lip, those alarms telling her she’s being toyed with like the mouse before its demise ringing again. His eyes turn calculating as he takes all of her in, then he offers his arm. 

“Come.”

There is no brooking that command. It seeps into her marrow, some primal part of her tugging at her very mortality to obey, obey, _obey—_

She loops her arm through his without thought, and the tugging ebbs with a soft whispered sigh of relief, her mouth curling into a pleased smile at having done as told before her awareness catches up to the situation, and when it does, her whole body jerks, startled.

Kylo stops and looks down at her with a curious look before arching a bemused brow. She shakes her head, once again emerging from behind the frenzy of mixed signals being exchanged between her mind and her body. She’s in trouble. 

“Lead the way.”

***

Kylo smiles, exiting the throne room with the girl on his arm, matching his longer stride to hers as they ascend slowly, up black marble staircases and down carpeted floors, his mind slowly chewing on a single thought. A crown.

He can’t stop himself from imagining it. The thought had so violently ripped into him at the sight of her eyes lighting up with his power, blue smoke swirling in the void of pitch black pupils before fading into the background, and for a moment he allowed himself to imagine _more_. She is not his equal, not as she remains, but she _feels_ as though she were despite her mortal body. He had expected her to cower, to feel threatened and cornered, and instead she’d crossed her arms and told him she could do just as well without him, _thank you very much_ , and Kylo couldn’t help but be attracted to that headstrong fire like a moth to a flame. 

She had sunk her nails into his psyche and clung on since the moment she visited that dusty hovel of a temple, but now… Now he cannot help but want to drape her in the most luxurious of black silks and crown her in jewels, bathe her in petals, foster that flame and apparent lack of fear until it became a raging fire to match his deepest, most glacial of frosts. 

It’s a savage sort of desire, born from depths he had not been aware he possessed—the desire for an equal.

He chews on that thought, deftly guiding her along the halls of his home before his fantasy is interrupted by the turn of her head. He looks out of the corner of his eye, watching as Rey shifts as surreptitiously as possible every hall or so, looking about.

“Lost something?” he asks, voice laced with humor, and Rey jumps in his arm. 

“Ah—“ she says, flushing at having been caught. “No. I was just… looking for Mitaka.”

“Oh?”

Her face takes on a defensive tilt and he almost smiles again. So cagey. 

“I wanted to thank him for his help the last time,” she explains, turning to glare at him as if daring him to deny her. That imagined crown drifts back to the front of his thoughts again. This time he does smile, the smallest of smirks blooming in the corners of his lips as he nods in acknowledgement. 

“I will send him to your quarters once you’re ready.”

Rey looks at him for a moment.

“My quarters?” she asks. “I have quarters?”

Kylo hums but continues on. Well… she’d have quarters _now_. A small twitch of his fingers starts the fire in said rooms, roaring to life, and the massive tub fills to the brim. He acts on his silent indulgences, poppy petals floating on the crystalline surface as he turns another hall and gently pushes the door open for her. Rey steps in cautiously, looking about.

He follows silently, letting her take in her surroundings and calming as she realizes he’s taken her to the same room Mitaka once had, though if his plans pan out, he will have to coax her into relocating to a much larger space. But the familiarity helps. Her shoulders relax and Rey turns to look at him, so he allows himself to close the distance. Her hair’s falling out of the half bun she’d shoved it into at some point during her journey back to the temple, so he aids the process by carefully reaching for the dirty scrap of fabric and coaxing it out, watching her hair cascade about her. He then removes his gloves, tossing them on the bed, and carefully pries the bloodied hair away from her temple with the gentlest of motions. She’s stiff, watching him carefully, and Kylo hums a low calming sound.

Her body once again begins to relax, only to stiffen again, her eyes narrowing at him. He ignores it all in favor of following her waves down her shoulders, slowly doing the one thing he hadn’t done in millenia for _anybody_. Kylo lowers himself to one knee, then holds a hand out for her to place her foot into, looking at her expectantly. Rey stares as he holds his position, but if there’s one thing he’d developed over the eons, it was patience. He had that in spades, at least for certain things. When it becomes clear he will not yield his position until she acts, Rey huffs and places a hand on his shoulder, lifting her skirts with the other as she offers him a slippered, dainty foot. She’s finally relaxed, this time, perhaps because he’s now the one at a disadvantage, kneeling and asking for her permission. Kylo smirks, grabbing her ankle gently and slipping the shoe off, gently squeezing the arch of her foot for a few moments, feeling her thighs quake before he places it on the floor and silently asking for the other, repeating the same treatment, thumb pressing into the soft flesh beneath her ankle, the fingers of his free hand wrapping around the tiny foot and pressing into its sole, the silence stretching between them only to be broken by the warm cackling of the fire and Rey’s uninhibited whimper. She must have ran quite a distance.  

Before he can even do anything else Rey drops her hand from him and plops her skirts back into place, obscuring his view of her calves as she blushes crimson and stutters,

“Thank you. I think I can handle myself from here on out.”

Kylo once again hums, and Rey’s body once again relaxes. “Yes, I believe you can,” he murmurs, rising slowly. Rey’s body sways, as if unsure whether to move closer or farther away, and it has been a very long time since he’s been in such close proximity to anybody, much less a human, and his body mirrors the motion before he can get a hold of himself. _She’s so lovely_ , his brain informs him, giving him other silly notions of what else he could _do_ , so Kylo steps away. “Call for Dopheld if you need anything. I am sure he’d be happy to see you.”

He disappears before her chin’s fully even dipped into her nod, reappearing in his much colder chambers. Kylo stares at the massive, empty hearth, and flicks his fingers to allow a fire to rage to life, then steps closer and stares into it. 

Somehow it does not warm him in the same way.

****

Rey stares at the place where Kylo stood, feeling tingly all over. She had never allowed anyone so close, much less a man—a creature? An otherworldly, immortal being?—and the arches of her feet feel branded by the naked touch of the firm hands that held them, her ankles as though shackled with golden restraints from where his grip had been, and her unable to move from where she’s rooted herself.

It takes her a minute of open staring, of registering sensations, and she thinks her returning to her own world is the only way to remain safe from the strange barrage of input she’s been dealing with after a life of chaste existence as a priestess that stands above the every day man, and yet so very below the same sort of being she’s now willingly tied herself to.

That thought spurs her into motion. Rey stares at the tub, steaming hot yet covered in soft red petals, and she scoffs, but promptly tugs her dress up over her head and lays it down on the bed. She spares yet another moment of regret for the beautiful thing, remembering the moment she’d put it on what feels like hours ago and seeing it now dirtied and soiled, threads snagged from where rough rocks had hit her, and a few drips of her own blood on the sleeve. Maybe she could ask Mitaka if he could fix it somehow? 

But no, the water calls her. She’ll deal with the dress in a bit.

She gingerly eases into it, groaning at the feeling of heat scorching her aching muscles, submerging herself all the way to her nose before dipping her head back. She could easily live like this. She could _die_ like this. Happily. Rey breathes in deep and for a moment she forgets everything. Water is such a commodity in her world that this had never been an option for her, the smell of flowers and oils floating around her making her wish she could stay here if only so she could live inside a tub. 

A tub provided by one extremely vexing god, who looks ready to scorch the earth one moment and freeze it the next, only to gently tend to her in between as though having forgotten everything else for no reason other than he can. The whims of the gods have always been dangerous to humans, her High Priestess has told her, and Rey feels as though she’s starting to understand. Was there even a middle ground to his moodiness? 

 How can a creature shake the very foundations of a whole village one moment just on his temper alone (for she’d never believe it _wasn’t_ him. It was far too convenient a lie on his end) then treat her like a precious doll he wishes to pamper and dress up the next? Was she simple entertainment? She can hardly imagine that he’s seen much company _ever_. 

That must be it. He’s bored. And confusing. He’s bored and confusing, and turning Rey’s life upside down. But he’d given her a tub full of deliciously hot water, and privacy, and she’s an easy girl to please.

She leans back against the edge and closes her eyes, deciding that no matter how confusing the owner of such comforts was, she at least could revel in this little slice of magic for as long as he was willing to allow her to do so. 

She would figure him out later.

A moment later, Rey starts to doze.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ZECO5000 on Tumblr [messaged me their headcanon](https://lucidlucy.tumblr.com/post/170740377390/aegis-hc-kylos-been-dying-to-see-her-draped-in) for Aegis that Kylo's been dying to see Rey draped in black silk, so now that's a thing that's going to have to happen. Headcanon accepted, yo.


	12. Chapter 12

_Knock, knock, knock._

Rey jerks awake, fingers turned pruney and body shivering from having sat in the cooling water too long, forgetting for a moment where she is until, after two owlish blinks, she takes in the roaring fire and the petals floating about her, reality coming back in one brutal slap. She looks towards the door, to the sound that brought her out of her doze.

“Lady Rey?”

Mitaka’s voice.

She breathes a sigh of relief, pushing herself away from the edge of the tub and sinking down further under the blanket of petals in her bath until she’s covered, arms wrapped around her body as she brings her knees up to her chest. “Come in!”

The door eases open slowly and Mitaka pokes a hesitant head in, eyes planted firmly on the ground and a semi flustered look on his face that he fights hard to disguise.

“My lady, are you decent?”

It warms her heart to see his face again, if for no other reason that he’s a gentleman and Rey has not stumbled upon many of those, and he seems predisposed to offer her friendship, something she also hasn’t been too often given.

“I’m covered well enough. Please, do come in.”

Mitaka angles himself sideways, turning his back to her so he can push himself in at a slow, careful crabwalk that indicates he’s taking particular care—until the reason for his odd behavior is presented in his arms, elbows bent to support the length of a breathtaking gown of softest fabric, layers upon pale layers cascading over Mitaka’s careful hold in a waterfall of shimmery embroidery and tiny precious stones that glitter in the firelight. He gives her a sheepish look from under his lashes for his intrusion that lasts no more than a heartbeat before scurrying over to the bed, gently laying the gown over the thick, plush bedding and a pair of matching slippers on the ground and Rey’s cheeks heat.

“I—That’s not necessary,” she insists as he replaces her dusty slippers with the new ones. _Another_ pair. _Another_ gown. Another gown that feels like such an extravagant waste to a girl like her. She would only ruin both again with Jakku dust. “I was hoping you could just… maybe fix the one I was wearing already?”

“It is a gift from my Lord, my Lady.” He replies calmly, his tone and the set of his shoulders indicating that’s that and Rey should just stop even trying to argue.  Though she doesn’t doubt his resignation is well placed. She hasn’t known the Lord of Death for a very long time but she gets the impression he’s the type to get what he wants, and if that is to see her draped and primped while she’s in _his_ home, then there’s little she can do about it… unless she wants to go naked, which is _not_ an option. Mitaka turns, his sheepish look becoming a sheepish smile. “I admit, Lady Rey, I never expected to see you return.”

For all that it is an innocent remark, it sounds like a question than a statement to her ears. And why shouldn’t it? Rey tilts her head, thinking back to the very reason she ended up here; her whole life lately has been nothing but a big question mark  

“I admit I did not expect to return,” she gives a hesitant. “Things got... complicated.”

Mitaka lets out a soft snort of commiseration and she finds a kindred spirit in the ferryman; he seems like the sort of person for whom everything turns complicated, just like her. “I am at your service should you need anything else, in that case. If it would please you, I shall wait outside until you are ready. My Lord Ren awaits in his throne room.”

A reminder of her waiting host sends a spike of warmth down her spine, remembering the way he’d knelt at her feed to divest her of her footwear; the care with which he’d kneaded into her arches and the unreadable look on his face. Rey’s cheeks flush with that spreading heat despite the coolness of the water. Mitaka promptly removes himself and closes the door with the same gentle manner in which he does everything else, leaving her free to finish washing—and to her thoughts—beffort getting out of the tub and turning to the fire.

The room is cold enough now for her to imagine that all the warmth of the universe has been leeched away from the world. Her limbs shiver, small hairs rising as the cold draft competes and threatens to overcome the warmth of the hearth, Rey's skin pebbling between one shudder and the next. She forces herself to stillness long enough for her skin to dry, pruney fingers running through her quickly drying hair, doing her best to comb out the tangles her mad dash to safety had left before she begins plaiting it away from her face with careful motions.

Whatever Death has done to her, she no longer retains any injuries. Not even so much as a headache. Her temple is unmarred, her belly soft and unbruised, and her arms clear of even so much as a scratch. She does quick work of slipping into her gown, marveling once more at the fit and wondering what sort of powers are at play here before turning toward the door with a rueful shake of her head. She’s out of her depth here… Rey wets her lips and takes in a deep breath of courage before stepping outside.

Mitaka offers his arm and Rey accepts it, hiking up her long skirts up with the other to keep from tripping as they make their way back long corridors that are slowly starting to become familiar. She lets her mind wander in the quiet, comfortable silence, thinking back to Death bringing her back into his underworld and the ease with which he’d extracted a promise of barter from her. He had told her once that gods did nothing in exchange for nothing, and the thought makes her shiver. He hadn’t wanted her soul, he’d said, but that doesn’t mean he couldn’t want practically everything else she has to offer. Which isn’t much, really—she has nothing to offer but herself. And that is the crux of it all. Her thoughts delve back to her past, to long lessons with the High Priestess. She had been told repeatedly that humans danced on the strings of the gods, that it would be in her best interest to keep her head down and do as she was told, and to avoid their ire or attention.

If only she had listened.

But she hadn’t, and this had been a mess of her own making. She can already hear Finn's words about her lack of faith. Then again, if she hadn't gotten swept up in the business of gods, she wouldn't be able to see all the things she's seen already. And oh, can she see them. They jump at her crystal clear now, down to the minute threads of the plush carpeting and the texture of the very rock that formed the walls, the stones pressed so tightly together she hardly believed she could squeeze a single strand of her hair through one of the seams.  Rey sighs, shelving her existential crisis away for later as she focuses on what she must do now. The thought of returning fills her with a warm, acidic sort of apprehension. At first she had just wanted the weird quasi-nightmare of having her world upended to end, to return to her own home and put it all behind her if that were possible. Now she just wants to return because there's a furious fire in the pit of her belly and an apology would not be amiss. It hadn’t been amiss the _first_ time. Rey scoffs. As if.

Well, she was getting one this time. She would face them head on, get her apology, and then...then she'd deal with Ren when she crossed that bridge. 

So consumed is she by the thought that she starts when Mitaka swings his hands and the giant doors to the Death’s Throne Room are opened. She steps forward with a harsh intake of breath, Mitaka releasing her arm and bowing before making his exit. On the far end of the room sits Kylo Ren, tall and massive and regal on a similarly imposing throne, his eyes focused on what at first sight seems to be a pinprick of blue light. She moves further in, her slippered shoes gliding and making barely a sound, her curiosity spiking as what she’d believed to be a pinprick of light becomes an amorphous shape that she would swear had once resembled a human. The movement of her stride finally catches Ren’s attention. He looks up, eyes pinned on her even as he listens with half an ear to the sound echoing through the room. A moment later, she realizes who—or what—it belongs to. The shape.

Rey looks at it. Kylo's fingers begin drumming on the arm of his throne, eyes roving over her as she approaches.

“What is it?” she asks, eyes fixed on the...thing. She moves closer, trying to get a better look, but it floats too far away from her, and when she reaches toward the waters upon which it floats, her host's harsh command pulls her back from it. 

“Do not touch that,” he says, index and forefinger still tapping away, then stopping. “Unless you wish to join this poor soul in the depths of the river that flows through beneath, that is. Not even I am immune for long, and you certainly would die very quickly.”

She yanks her hand back as if burned, staring at the rippling waters with the brand new appreciation she would pay a snake upon learning of its poison, and shoves it behind her back, winding her fingers tightly together before looking up at the owner of that thunderous voice.

“It seems I am not allowed to touch an awful lot of things in your world,” Rey comments, trying for airy but delivering a quivery, weak retort instead. It only seems to amuse her host.

“You are alive, lovely human, in the land of all things dead,” he replies, waving his hand. The soul upon the waters sinks back into it, letting out a sound of awful despair that sends goosegumps of alarm and sympathy down her spine, but before she can even ask where the soul has gone, or what it used to belong to, Death has stepped off his dais entirely and is eating up the space between them, eyes appreciatively traveling from the very top of her head to her softly slippered feet. “Do not touch the  water.”

She glances at the pool again. He had told her something similar inside the poppy cave, that dream-like fantasy netherworld from so long ago, a cherished yet haunting memory for her. She hadn’t been allowed to step closer to the river then. Perhaps she should start fearing all sorts of liquids here.

As if reading her mind, Kylo chuckles. “Enjoy your bath?”

She narrows her eyes at him, forgetting for a moment that Ren is watching her with the same appreciative look he’d worn the moment she’d stepped in. Not quite as a man would a woman, but more as a… curiosity. Then again, she hardly knows what a man inspecting a woman with interest really _looks_ like.

 _Snap out of it, Rey_ , she chastises, then straightens her spine. The second her eyes meet his, said spine liquefies. Something inside her… something wakes to the light shining on his irises, pulls to the darkness of his pupils. Something that _wasn’t_ there only hours ago. Kylo inches closer, one gloved hand reaching to gently move a stray bit of hair behind her ear, his finger trailing the naked shell of it as he studies her face, waiting for her answer.

“Yes, thank you,” she says, watching the corners of Death’s lips twitch upward ever so slightly again, the act of smiling in her presence like a new sweet he's just learned the taste of and must sample again and again, his scrutiny unwavering. First her gown, then back to her face, to her head and collarbone and ears as if looking for something that’s not there.

“You are missing jewels,” he murmurs. Rey looks down at her dress, then back at him, her eyebrows rising up to near her hairline. As if her already being encrusted in tiny pearls and shining chips of diamond amongst the soft flower petals adorning her gown weren’t enough jewelry to supply the world above and below with.

A gentle flick of his wrist and a beautiful, fragile looking golden wreath of laurels appears in his hands, the leaves impossibly bright, the shine nearly blinding. Rey watches it completely materialize on his splayed hands from the ether, eyes narrowed.

“That is unnerving…” she mutters. He is close enough to hear it, humming his response as he turns her around and gently places it on her head, atop her braids, so the tiny tips of golden leaves come to rest on the slope of her temple. She can hardly feel the thing. If it weren’t for the fact that she feels _him_ adjusting it, she would hardly believe he’d placed anything there at all.

“I do not need it.” She knows that, much like the gown, this too will prove futile. She can practically hear Mitaka’s voice in her head telling her in so many words not to argue about his Lord’s gifts given in good grace, but she cannot help herself.

Kylo turns her around to face her, eyes narrowed, and she immediately tenses, waiting for the blow of his disapproval at her rudeness. Instead he inspects her collarbone, waving a dismissive hand.

“Beautiful things are meant to be showcased,” he explains, before yet another piece of jewelry appears out of thin air. a dainty necklace to match the laurels in her hair. It rests open at the vee of her collarbone once he's done placing it exactly where he wants to. Kylo steps back from playing doll and gives her one long once over before settling said gaze back on her face, obviously satisfied. She’s not sure which is worse for the nervous butterflies in her stomach, his scrutiny or his attention.

She clears her throat again, hyper-aware of the fact that she’s doing it an awful lot to buy herself time, and instead switches gears.

“This will get in the way,” she says, fluffing her layers upon layers of featherlight skirts _at_ him to demonstrate. Kylo’s smile widens.

“Hardly,” he replies. It’s a vicious cycle, this one, and she’s starting to feel just a little resentful about it. She tells him as much and he laughs.

“You’re not just a toy for me to, what did you call it? 'play house with,' little flower,” he says, stretching out his hand. “But I cannot deny that the newly discovered pleasure of seeing you shining so brightly in my hall is a welcome one. Now, are you ready to return to your little hovel?”

She should smack him for that one, but the reminder brings her back to less amusing subjects and she’s too angry at her own people right now to correct him. Rey sighs, then nods and takes his hand. His fingers tighten on hers, bringing her attention squarely to him once more.

“Remember your promise,” he says. In the next second, she’s being sucked through time and space, darkness enveloping her so fully it feels like ceasing to exist. A moment later, she’s standing in light so blinding Rey shields her eyes and cringes.

There are gasps. Rey opens her eyes and looks around at the people gathered, a sudden dread of a repeat of the last time she’d been stoned and chased out of town bubbling up in her stomach, only to be replaced by the realization that her fingers are _still_ being held. She whips her head back. Kylo is standing there, his hair and cloak like black holes sucking in all the light of the world even as his eyes burn gold and inhuman.

Some people in the crowd run. The priestesses behind them cower—all of them except one, the High Priestess, who by sheer power of will alone isn’t soiling her skirts like some of the youngest apprentices are—there are shouts, quickly hushed as the rest of said crowd stares transfixed. Kylo dropped right into another ritual offering for rain, now ruined, and… and _remained_. He stands a giant, a god amongst mortals, darkness trailing and enveloping all of him and his eyes firmly fixed on _her._

Then he bends lightly at the waist, brings her knuckles to his lips, brushing the gentlest of kisses there, and disappears.

****

He watches from the shadows, safe behind the cover of his invisibility while leaning against a pillar while Rey’s world devolves to madness. But not before it stands still, one beat of silence following another. He risks much to stand here, defiant of Hux’s blue skies during a celebration meant for him, but Kylo can hardly help himself. He has a vested interest in what happens next, and if these puny little humans think they can hurt what is now his a second time, they will quickly learn what it truly is like to anger a god.

So he watches.

The crowd gapes. Rey stands statue still only for a moment, then she turns the slowest turn he’s ever seen to face first the priestesses, then the crowd, looking like a goddess and a queen in all but name, her brown hair shining a brilliant chestnut against the gold of her jewelry and the soft paleness of her dress. He had chosen well. Kylo doesn’t even bother to keep the petty thrill of self satisfaction at bay, that part of him goading to make his presence—and his favor—known with a sealed kiss to her skin. If they fear him as much as Rey seemed to upon first contact, then he would love to see them give him a reason to live up ro the reputation they assigned him.

His overprotectiveness is illogical, of that he is sure, but he’s not entirely sure he cares at this point. These last few weeks have made him feel more alive than the millions of hours that have been the sum of his miserable existence. Call him selfish. He would hardly deny it. He and selfishness were very well acquainted, one of the few human emotions he still understood. Kylo’s lips curl into the beginnings of a smile, arms crossed over the broad expanse of his chest.

Game. Set. Match.

“Rey,” a woman says, her voice steady but her face barely containing her alarm. A moment later and a look over Rey’s shoulder towards crowds on the verge of panicking, said beautiful priestess paints relief over her features and moves to embrace her much younger apprentice. “You’re alive.”

A muscle at Kylo’s temple jumps, already disliking the woman. Whatever it is Rey is here for, he hopes it ends soon.

****

This might have been a bad idea. She might get stoned to death for real this time. Oops? 

Rey groans inwardly. 

Of course it had to get complicated. She hadn’t expected the god of Death to make such an appearance, much less such a public display of… whatever that was, leaving her then to face the crowd and the priesthood alone. She doesn’t have a foothold, and she can only stand there staring at the crowds, then slowly at the High Priestess. It’s one thing to (supposedly) escape a temple twice, it’s another thing entirely to be delivered by Death himself on the steps of a gathering with such…

She doesn’t even have words for it, and her cheeks heat at the possibility of even putting a name to it, torn between being flustered and being angry. Angry at Ren. Angry at Tamera for having allowed the townspeople to do what they did, angry at the townspeople for trying to get rid of her a _second_ time, forgetting entirely that she’s a _person_. Angry at herself for even thinking that she could come back and demand an apology. What was she thinking?

Oh, that’s right. She wasn’t. She was acting on her spite like a petulant child. Now her words fail her at the sound of her name on Tamera’s lips. Rey wets her own, her throat now as parched as the sands of the surrounding desert. She couldn’t just—

The High Priestess steps forward, and Rey doesn’t miss the way her expression shifts from panicked to relieved only after she looks over her shoulder at the crowd, stepping forward and embracing Rey in a motherly embrace she hadn’t felt in years now. Part of her never fails to be suspicious—a very large part of her, in fact—but then there’s the part of her that’s touch starved and had, for better or worse, always seen this woman as the stern mother she’d never really had. Embraces were rare, precious things to be cherished. And she could see the logic in difussing the situation. So Rey draws a breath and tries for a smile, unaware that Death watches every motion from the shadows.

“I came back,” she says. Those were not the words she had wanted to deliver. She had wanted to _scream_ , and really, looking back on her experience, she had had more reason to scream than anyone else, though more often than not the screams had been aimed at her instead. But she's being welcomed back. So she puts aside that suspicion, that minor prick of hurt at seeing what amounts to essentially preemptive damage control instead of genuine relief, and embraces the High Priestess back. The priestess may be trying to keep the situation from escalating, but Rey can hear disbelief nonetheless when she speaks next to her ear.

“I see that.”

A moment later she's held at arm’s length, inspected from head to toe with a critical eye for injuries for a long minute, then Tamera smiles. “Welcome home, child. Come, now, let’s take you out of this heat.”

Preemptive damage control. Her heart aches at the knowledge. 

 _Yes, but it is not unfounded,_ cautions her brain.  The townspeople had always been moved to action by fearmongering, and they had _just_ experienced a valid reason to be afraid. Were they acting on that fear now? The other priestess initiates won’t meet her gaze as they run to disperse the crowds, Tamera directing her deeper into the Sun God’s temple. Divide and conquer. Rey narrows her eyes at the statue on the end of the large airy hall. This is not of a human figure, but a massive sun. She wonders idly what the sun god looks like. Or is it a she? Would the Sun god—or goddess— be listening in on this, as Death had been before? Was she offending them by having dropped in with none other than Death himself on their party? Rey chews her lip.

So much she now needs to rearrange in her mind, so much she needs to question, and those are not even the biggest of her problems at the moment. Rey takes a deep breath and follows the High Priestess, unsure now of what her place in the world even is.

The doors close behind them, leaving Rey and High Priestess alone except for the gaze of a massive sun—and Kylo, hiding comfortably in the shadows against a pillar and feeling highly annoyed at having to be inside Hux’s domain—and as soon as the wooden sound hits Rey’s ears, the priestess turns on her heel and inspects her anew. This time she wears the face Rey’s been far more familiar with her whole life: a no-nonsense matron used to too many initiates shenanigans and, despite a very large well of patience, having no time for beating around the bush and even less for entertaining anything dangerous.

“What have you done?” she asks, looking at Rey’s dress, her necklace, the laurels that, if one squints just right, could easily pass for a diadem. “How are you here?”

But Rey is no longer a priestess initiate. At least, she doesn’t _feel_ like one. She certainly didn’t feel like one when she got tossed on her ass inside an empty temple to die, and she doesn’t feel like one now. Her anger comes boiling back, even if on some academic level she understands why the questions are being asked without an ounce of sugarcoating.

“What have _I_ done?” Rey asks, squaring her shoulders. “That’s a rich question, coming from the person who sacrificed me. I know why you did it, High Priestess, and forgive me for saying it, but you had absolutely no right to. And as how _I_ came to be here—well, you saw it for yourself, didn’t you?” she says through gritted teeth and narrowed eyes. Then something in her, something that matches the darkness of Kylo’s cloak, rears its petty head. The next words are out before she can even think twice about it, and are delivered with relish. “Or should I call Him back? I’m sure He’d be delighted to explain it to you himself.”

“That won’t be necessary,” says Tamera, who’s complexion has taken on the color of a pale white sheet.

There’s an immediate feeling of shame that creeps over her at goading her mentor and guardian, though that shame is accompanied by no small amount of excitement at the defiance. That look on the priestess’s face is almost worth the shame. Almost. Even so, Rey reminds herself of the long, empty days she spent locked up in a temple and forces the urge to blush down. The priestess, unaware of Rey's emotional battle between shame and pettiness, moves in further into the temple, leaving Rey to follow.

“Will you be returning to the cloister, then? Your old room is still as you left it.”

 _You mean as_ you _forced me to leave it_ , Rey thinks bitterly, but draws a breath and nods.

“I will,” she begins, then thinks better of it, “...I think.”

“You think?” the High Priestess turns to look at her.

Well, obviously getting an apology is not going the way Rey planned.

“I…” she begins, clearing her throat. “I must… _yes_ , I will return. After.”

“After?”

“I—”

How can she even begin to explain that she made a deal with Death and must return with him before she even considers returning home? Well, simple. Really. She doesn’t.

Because the option is taken away from her when a gust of cold wind whips at her and Tamera’s skirts, who once more turns three different shades of pale and sickly as one Lord of Death himself materializes a few paces behind Rey. He stalks closer, and Rey doesn’t even need to look behind her to know who it is. She closes her eyes and sighs. Definitely not the way things should have gone.

Kylo saunters up and places a light, possessive hand on Rey’s shoulder, forcing Tamera’s eyes to the motion before the woman drops to her knees and plants her nose to the floor.

“Oh! My—”

Kylo lets out an amused huff, pulling Rey a little closer and arching an eyebrow in her direction that screams _are all humans so quick to grovel_ _?_ before speaking. His eyes are glowing, his cloak seeming to be made of nothing but a dark fog, and he takes up all the oxygen in the room, looking an awful lot larger than his actual height. Were Rey in Tamera's place, she would be pissing her skirts right now. 

“Up, Human.”

Rey had never seen the High Priestess move that fast in her life, but Tamera keeps her eyes pinned to the ground nonetheless. Rey detects the beginnings of a tremor in her keeper's slender fingers where she tries to keep them at her side. 

“This is taking far too long. Were you the person who threw this girl into my temple?” Ren asks, eyes like hot coals and jaw set. Rey gapes, but when she tries to turn to him and speak he only squeezes her shoulder and gives her a hard, cold glare. A clear command to stay quiet, and who is she to argue? Her mouth clicks closed with a snap. Tamera looks like she’s ready to have the sun god’s temple open right through the middle and swallow her.

“I—it is not what You think—it was a misunderstanding!” The Priestess spreads her hands, her eyes trying to seek Rey’s in lieu of meeting a diety’s. Rey would be amused if it wasn’t for the fact that the temperature keeps dropping dangerously and Death looks ready to do justice by his title. “We only wanted to-... to appease—”

“Do I look appeased?” Kylo cuts her off.

Tamera swallows down on a hard lump of air.

“No, I do not, Human. And do _you_ know what a god does when he’s unhappy?” Kylo asks, but his eyes flash to Rey long enough for her to realize that behind all the goading, Ren is undoubtedly amused by all this. The nerve. Still, she keeps quiet. It is not often a High Priestess gets a divine smacking. Kylo continues, his voice so low it makes the very stones tremble, “Though I must thank you, since you have finally given me _something_ worth your pitiful little lives. Now, to answer your question—she will return. _If_ and _when_ she wishes to, but only after she has fulfilled her agreement with _me_. Which I must say I am impatient to get back to, but first…”

Rey looks at him from the corner of her eye. Now what?

“First, Human, you will apologize. And unless you’d like to see your streets run with blood for the offense you have caused her—” Kylo growls, leaning in closer and casting a shadow over Tamera’s head in the process. Rey notes that he doesn’t call up any offense to _him_ personally. “—you will do so swiftly and sincerely.”

Rey has to give it to the woman. Had it been her in the priestess’s place, Rey would like to think she would be as strong as Tamera and not immediately wet herself on the marble floors, but she has to admit Ren can be intimidating when he wants to be.

“I…” Tamera starts, eyes tight on her bare feet.

“Look at her when you speak,” Kylo snaps, making the priestess jump. The man can certainly be cruel when he wants to. But said cruelty is effective. Tamera’s eyes snap up to Rey’s in a heartbeat.

“I am sorry.”

Kylo smiles. “Excellent.”

Then he wraps his arm around Rey’s waist and a second later, they’re gone in a cloud of cold black smoke.

****

Rey stomps behind him as Kylo enters his dining room, a furious little ball of humanity who has to practically run to keep up with his much longer strides. He smiles, having found himself in a particularly good mood after that fantastic flex of his power to intimidate.

“That was _entirely_ unnecessary,” Rey says, poking a finger at his back. The fact that she seems to lose all traces of fear whenever she’s in a rage only heightens said good mood, and so he chuckles. He’d much rather have an angry, passionate little human than a scared mouse running around his halls.

“You didn’t seem to mind,” he says rather agreeably. And he knows she didn’t mind. There had been a twinkle of righteous satisfaction there in Rey’s eyes when he made the priestess woman apologize.

“I didn’t need your interruption,” Rey hisses, “I had it under control.”

“It was taking too long,” he replies evenly, pleased to see that Mitaka has already prepared and laid out a meal worthy of a king in Rey’s own realm, rather than Kylo’s usual humble tray. “I agreed to take you there, not to wait forever.”

Rey is now close enough that her skirts kick against his cloak, despite her trying her best not to step on it. He hears a soft little snarl from behind him and his smile widens. “I had it under control.”

“Hmm.”

“You could have waited just a little longer.”

“I’m an impatient man.”

“You’re hardly a man.”

“Correct, I am not a man, little human. I am a god. And I do not like to be kept waiting,” he says, moving to the head of the table and taking his seat, casting an arched brow her way again and daring her to continue that line of conversation. “Sit.”

She drops into her seat—more of an angry plop, really—and glares at him, silenced by his statement. Kylo’s lips soften from his smirk into a more indulgent expression.

“You cannot deny you enjoyed seeing her finally apologize.”

Rey huffs out an irritated breath, choosing to say nothing. Instead she starts fussing with her laurels, pulling first the necklace from around her beautiful neck then her wreath from her hair, avoiding his eyes as she reverently sets them aside. He takes her silence as a point scored and thus decides not to get irked at the fact that she’s removing his gifts one by one, reaching to grab a handful of grapes and popping them into his mouth one at a time while he watches her.

“Are you so very upset?” he asks at last when she’s finished taking it all off and settles her hands on her lap, staring pointedly at the bowl of fruit before her.

“I wish you hadn’t interfered. It’s complicated things enough.”

He hums again. He hadn’t thought about that. How could he, really? He was used to having things his way—or, more often than not, not having things at all given his predisposition to view everything but his own small plane of existence with anything but disinterest and thus never really getting involved. He licks his teeth, gazing at her for a long moment.

“I apologize.”

Rey’s face jerks up in surprise. He watches her closely. The words are foreign to him, hardly meaning much, but they seem to be the words she needs to hear, and for the effort he’s rewarded with a small smile on her part.

“Thank you.”

Perhaps this is the feeling she experienced when that awful woman finally uttered the words. Kylo nods, popping another grape into his mouth and waiting for her to say anything else. He knows what comes next, and by the way Rey has kept stealing glances at him, she does, too. She made a promise. He fulfilled his end of the bargain, however shrewdly he may have speeded up the process. Now it is her turn to do the same. She clears her throat.

****

“So,” Rey begins awkwardly, fidgeting with her skirts where he cannot see it as she swallows repeatedly, trying to get her voice box to do a proper job of giving her the words she’s fishing for. It had been kind of him to apologize, but the second he’d done so, her annoyance had fizzled like a dampened wick. Now her stomach is filling once again with the nervous beating of butterfly wings, and though she can once again meet his eyes—they are back to normal again, pools of honey rather than fire—she can hardly make herself do so.

She had made a bargain, and Death has come to collect on it.

“So.” He repeats, sounding the expression out awkwardly. She wonders how often he speaks to any person other than Mitaka.

“I am here.”

“So you are.”

“You granted me safe passage,” she continues, though she’s unsure how _safe_ it would have been had he not been there. She'll have to thank him for that eventually... when she's not so thoroughly irked by the theatrics.

A thought occurs to her that perhaps that’s exactly why he remained. But if so, then why kiss her at all? No, not a kiss. Granting of protection. Why do one and then choose to stay?

 _I am not a patient man_.

Right. This is more complicated than she thought, and she’s hanging her own noose while he watches her with cat-like contentment.

“So I did.”

“And I suppose you would like my… _time_ … now.”

Kylo remains silent.

“How much time, exactly?” she asks, cautiously.

“How much are you willing to give?” he asks, head tilting sideways until he can rest his cheek on his fist, looking at her like one would a brand new toy they plan to break in thoroughly. Rey shifts in her seat. What did she sign up for, anyway?

“I do not know,” she says truthfully. Lying to a god seems like it would be a very bad idea. Kylo hums thoughtfully, eyes twinkling.

“Then what if I were to demand all of it?”

For what feels like the hundredth time that day, Rey finds herself gaping. “What? Absolutely not!”

“Why not?” he prods, “What is your time worth to you? A kingdom? A crown? Ask and you shall receive.”

“You must be joking.”

“I assure you, I do not _joke_.”

“I cannot give you all my time.”

“Hmm.”

“But I could give...some?”

“How much, then?”

“A day?”

“Now surely _you_ must be joking,” he says, eyebrows climbing to his hairline. “Surely you would grace me with more time than that after all I’ve given you for it.”

“Two?” Rey says, he only looks at her. “Three?”

He keeps staring at her, and Rey guesses she should count herself lucky that he’s even letting her barter. He could claim them all if he _really_ wanted to, after all, and who is she but a humble human to object? Yes, she should count herself lucky, yet for some reason the concept of haggling  _up_ seems entirely unnatural. She should be trying to haggle him  _down_. He had been smart, letting  _her_ choose. She tries again. 

“Se...ven…?” Seven seems like a reasonable number. A whole week. He seems to agree. Kylo smiles, but still remains silent. She’s getting warmer.

 _Oh for all the gods' sakes._ Well... she's certainly staring at a god. Rey groans and rubs at her cheek self consciously. 

“Seven,” she says with more conviction this time. There, that's her choice.

He still says nothing. So really... what else is she to do? up the number some more? “Seven days every new moon? I will go no more than that.”

A girl’s gotta set some hard limits, after all.

He grins.

Then he reaches across his table and grabs a big, round fruit, cracking it open while Rey watches the blood-red juices dripping down his leather gloves. He painstakingly pries seven seeds out of it, bursting with sweetness and flavor, and places them on his plate. Then he slowly removes his gloves, leaving her transfixed to his every movement as he sets them gently aside before turning to her. One large hand reaches towards her, unusually soft as it cradles her jawline, his thumb running over her lower lip before he pries open first her lips, then her teeth.

Her heart begins beats wildly, something savage and unnatural drumming inside of her along with said heartbeat as Lord Death places his pomegranate seeds one by one on her tongue, holding her open, eyes glued to hers, and she could not look away if she wanted to. There’s something happening. Something she, in her many innocent years, can’t quite put a name to, but she feels it in her very bones as he finishes placing them in her mouth, trailing that staining sweetness on her lip as he instructs,

“Chew.”

She chews. Her mouth explodes with the sweetness of expensive, intoxicating honey wine on her tongue, but she only has eyes for Ren, who smiles at her all the while the juice of the pomegranate slips down her throat to coat her insides and join that thunderous power flowing through her, making her whole body sing as though she hadn’t just chewed seven measly seeds, but drank gallons upon gallons of the stuff. When she finally swallows, Kylo rises and moves close. He then leans to place a gentle kiss on her bare knuckles.

“Welcome to your home for the next seven days.”

****

Elsewhere, Hux is roused from the absolute boredom that is his ‘life’ as he stares out beyond a vast field of clouds and golden fields by Phasma, who walks in on light feet despite her somber mood.

“Anything of interest?” he asks. It had taken a while to return, and he very much doubts she really does have anything of interest, given that nothing of interest _had_ happened to him over the last five or so centuries, at any rate.

Oh, how wrong he is.

“Ren has been spotted visiting your domain unannounced. In fact, he made quite a commotion amongst the mortals.” Phasma explains, grabbing a goblet of elixir and circling around to come to stand next to him. “It seems he accompanied a girl.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Rey's [Pretty](https://lucidlucy.tumblr.com/post/167888952080/belleamira-once-upon-a-dream-paolo-sebastian) [dress](https://lucidlucy.tumblr.com/post/170878552085).
> 
> 2\. Thank you all for reading! Also, a totally self indulgent plug, bear with me: I just recently finished my Reylux fanfic, [A Dance of Titans](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6771919/chapters/15477367), and in light of having finished it, I decided to link it here! It's an epic, guys, and a lot of work and love went into it over the last two years! so if you like my writing and longfics with complex plots and lots of slow burn sounds like something you guys might enjoy a little, check it out. I promise you it's very enjoyable ;) for those of you for whom it's not your cup of tea, totally ignore this, haha. 
> 
> I am also working on [KINDRED](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9484292/chapters/21460334), again!The story begins with some of the smaller quirks of TFA that allows me to explore a young Ben who abandons the Falcon on Jakku and meets a recently abandoned Rey, and lets me explore a story adjacent to canon up to the events of TFA and soon TLJ, which means we'll get to not only see them grow up and suffer(tm) but also get into Renperor territory and beyond ;) I hope you'll join me for the journey. 
> 
> And finally, I hope you enjoyed this chapter. WE'RE FINALLY TO THE PART WITH THE POMEGRANATE. Only took 5EVER to get to my favorite part of this myth. Things can only get interesting from here on out ;) P.s: Kylo has no concept of what human boundaries of personal space are.


	13. Chapter 13

Hux turns slowly to get a better look at Phasma, replaying the words he had just heard—or thought he’d heard—in his head for a moment. Ren, seen in broad daylight by a gathering of humans. It was unheard of. Oh, sure, the last few weeks he’d indulged far too much with that little human distraction of his, a situation Hux had been keeping keen tabs on, but never had it moved past him visiting his own temple to play like a cat with a freshly caught mouse. That wasn’t something Hux could do anything about. The temples to Death, while by necessity existing within Hux’s domain due to the creatures that created them, were still _Ren’s_ , and much to Hux’s annoyance Ren could do whatever he pleased with them. But to hear that Death had shown up undisguised in broad daylight amongst the mortals was… well, it was _unheard_ of. And a breach.

Sure, there were no _rules_ in place, per se, that dictated that he couldn’t show up wherever he wanted, just like there were no rules to keep Hux out of the underworld, but Ren abided by the same unspoken law Hux did—you stay on your side, and I’ll stay in mine. They were both overprotective of their domains, and other than the rare occurrences in which Hux had shown up to visit Ren (to warn him, and goad him a little, but mostly to deliver warnings) or Ren had stormed Hux’s palace, they and all other gods made it a point not to frolick amongst the mortals, especially Ren and Hux. Ren was mostly stuck to his own self-imposed seclusion, disinterested in joining the few others of their kind that now remained, and Hux… well, Hux couldn’t care less about anything that isn’t related to keeping order within his domain.

But to hear that Ren has surfaced… and surfaced at a sacrificial ceremony for _him_ no less! Hux’s left eye twitches as he looks closer at Phasma’s face, finding no lie there. Was Ren trying to anger him? Because he couldn’t have planned it better if he tried. Sure, he hadn’t paid attention to that backwater corner of nowhere for a very long time, and the last time he deigned to look in on them was to see what sort of noise Ren was up to despite Hux’s general lack of interest in anything involving the mortals. But this… this was new. Hux’s brain, already thinking ten steps ahead and wondering where it all can go wrong, dissects the next bit of information.

_He was accompanied by a girl._

No doubt this girl is the same one Ren had been wasting his time on before. The one he’d taken. The one Hux couldn’t reclaim just to deny Ren the pleasure and the novelty because the girl had gone of her own volition. His teeth click together in annoyance, eyes traveling back out into the blank cloudy expanse of nothingness, thinking of what his next step should be.

Obviously, warning visits to Ren were having practically no effect on the matter, and Hux could hardly claim the girl as part of his domain, given that she had gone willingly… and if he were honest with himself, he had only been watching Ren with half an eye. After years of relative quiet and peace in which Hux and Ren ignored each other had made it easy to fall into a sort of leaden complacency on his part.

That time seems to have come to an end.

No, he couldn’t just barge in. He would have to pay much closer attention this time, if only because of anyone else in the whole universe, Hux alone has the memory to remember Ren’s temperament and the sort of chaos he can sow if given free reign to act on his emotions. Emotions this little girl seems to be stirring if Ren’s sudden behavior is any proof. And that would not do.

No, it wouldn’t do at all.

Questions begin to brew, and Hux narrows his eyes. Ren would be bound to surface again, and this time, Hux would be prepared for it. He disappears in a clap of thunder. It is time to pay the mortals a visit.

****

Rey’s lips are still damp with the sweetness of the seeds Ren had handfed her, her eyes glued to his face as the _something_ inside her that’s been rising as if in recognition settles into a pool of liquid calm in her stomach. She can no longer feel the ever pervasive cold that had chilled her bones upon entering this realm, kept at bay only by the good grace of Mitaka’s and Ren’s powers providing warmth for her before. She licks the dampness away, Ren’s eyes falling to it before focusing on hers, and something in her eggs her on to do it again. So she does. His eyes once again travel to the motion. She hides a smile at the perverse feeling of power over a god in such a small thing.

The feeling of power is then replaced by her earlier annoyance as Ren resumes his seat and the lips that threatened to smile now purse, turning down in distaste. Now that the deal’s done and she’s signed over a week of her life every moon in some sort of divine contract with Death, Rey can’t help but return to the events in the temple.

Sure, he had apologized, but that apology, much like the one Tamera had given her, was a forced one. She was under no delusions that he had told her what she wanted to hear, and though it had brought a spark of satisfaction to have him apologize, she could see no penance on his face when he’d uttered it. Which rankled now that he had managed to get exactly what he wanted out of it, whereas Rey had wanted a sincere apology and never got one. She would have to find a way to remedy that.

She bites on the inside of his cheek, watching Ren return to his food, contentedly popping in grape after grape into his mouth and chewing thoughtfully. Her eyes move onto the seemingly forgotten fruit from which she’d been fed.

“Why those seeds?” she tilts her chin towards the pomegranate, eyeing it carefully. It had tasted good. It had tasted _great_ , really. Sweet and deep, luxurious in a way nothing else she’d eaten in her own world had ever tasted, and just a little bit sinful. Nothing should taste that way.

“Why not?” he remarks, glancing at her for a moment. “Have you had them before?”

“No.”

“Did you enjoy them?”

“Yes,” she admits reluctantly, eyes falling back to it. Her teeth find the fleshy pillow of her lower lip and she bites. A pleased hum leaves him with a smile.

“Then the question would be; why would I give you anything else?”

She looks at him, eyes twitching towards a narrowed glare at the way he so expertly dances around the question and gives her nothing else. He seems to do that a lot, answer questions with questions, leading her on an eternal game of cat and mouse, and he’s the cat.

“Why those?” she asks again when what she really wants to ask is if she can have a few more. The greedy scavenger in her had never quite learned how to remain dormant.

Kylo places his food down and leans an elbow on the table and his cheek on his fist as he closes the distance between them until they’re only a handspan away, him inspecting her face and her trying to hold his eyes without fear. _Never forget who you’re facing,_ she reminds herself. _Never forget that you’re mortal, and he’s not_. She’d been warned so often not to let herself become the focus of interest of a god, and yet that’s exactly what she’s become as she sees herself reflected in those beautiful eyes before her.

He speaks after a long pause, his voice suspended somewhere her understanding and her compassion at the flash of loneliness in his eyes. Pure, naked loneliness that reflects the kind in her heart, loneliness she only gets a glimpse at when he says,

“It ties you to this realm. Temporarily at least.” his words are soft yet carry with them the weight of the eons he must have spent here, by himself. He looks away and smiles, “have you felt the change?”

She blinks, her mind whirring back to her realization that she was no longer cold. So, that’s the reason why. Rey looks at the pomegranate with brand new appreciation. “I—Yes…”

Would everything in this world of his behave the same way, every item she touched? Would she need to avoid touching the cutlery for fear of tying herself a little tighter to his realm? As if reading her mind again, Kylo smiles.

“You need not worry. Only the seeds tie you to this world, just as my power ties you to me. It is a gift,” he remarks, reaching for a hunk of warm bread, “it allows you to move around without falling in harm’s way… mostly. I would still heed Mitaka’s warnings if I were you, however. I sometimes think he knows my realm better than I do.”

Rey nods. She had gotten a similar feeling before. A memory surfaces, one of Mitaka warning her not to eat anything that he hadn’t prepared for her, and now it becomes clear why. The pomegranate seeds, looking so sinfully inviting—especially now that they have become something for her to look at but not touch—mock her in the candlelight. To eat more would be to tie herself further to this place, and as wondrous an experience as it has been so far, Rey’s very much aware that she’s out of her element. Her fingers toy with the lace trim of a perfectly shaped fabric flower on her gown, fingernail circling the small pearl between its folds.

“And now that you have my time, what you to do with it?” she asks. Ren stops mid-chew as if startled about the question and, having reached the same conclusion as she—that singular moment when they both must ask themselves ‘now what?’—words fail him. He places his food down, dusting his fingers absentmindedly as he seems to consider his words carefully. After another beat of silence, it becomes clear he hadn’t thought past the point of agreement, either.

He returns to his careful chewing, eyes distant as he considers her question, then gives the long table set before them, empty except for their own chairs, a distant look. “You are my guest here, you may spend your days in whichever way you please, go anywhere you please, as long as it is not the throne room. If you wish to explore, do so. If you wish to leave the palace grounds, Mitaka will guide you. Or you may remain inside if you wish. It is entirely up to you.”

“That doesn’t answer my question,” she says, “not really. Do you not have anything you’d like to do? Surely you asked me here for the company.”

Kylo gives her a wry smile. “I will always be aware of your whereabouts as long as you’re here. Your presence in my realm is enough.”

Well, that just feels awfully anticlimactic to her. Rey tilts her head, trying to process that tidbit of information and finding that she’s not entirely sure how to feel about the fact that he will know of her everywhere, like a silent shadow, though the thought does not produce any fear. She toys with the single beady pearl again. He had mentioned that he liked having her in his halls. Was this what he meant? Then again, it’s not too farfetched, really. Rey had spent years at the cloisters gathering comfort from the simple knowledge that there were other people out there walking the halls, bringing life to a place she was part of, knowing she wasn’t entirely alone.

“And you? What will you do?”

“Same thing I always have, I suppose,” he says, this time not caring to conceal the dry tone in his voice.

“You mean… kill people—” the words leave her before Rey can check her filter and she clamps down hard, teeth clicking. Oh no—Kylo’s sidelong glance freezes her in her spot. Then he shakes his head.

“I do not kill people, though I have. Before.” His gaze takes on that far away expression again, distant and as cold as the rest of his realm to reflect a certain… emptiness. It makes her chest constrict. Rey swallows, undeterred regardless.

“Collect them, then?”

His brows rise, his eyes regaining some of the merry twinkle they’d held before, right after he’d gotten away with snatching her right from under Tamera’s nose. She’s to be his entertainment, and it seems she’s providing that in spades.

“No, I do not _collect_ them.”

“Who does, then?”

Kylo smiles. “Mitaka.”

Oh.

Right.

She clears her throat, looking towards the door. Her newfound friend’s role in the underworld might not perhaps be as simple and straight cut as she had imagined. For what reason, she imagined he was simply a footman. Her eyes still on the door, Rey breathes out a soft question, images now playing in her head at all these new things she’s learning.

“So you mean, were my whole town to suddenly collapse, Mitaka would have to collect them all?”

Kylo chuckles.

“Why you care so much about what happens to that wretched people, I will never understand.” he shakes his head, his comment clearly an aside to himself. “No. He would not collect them all. They must come to him and pay their passage across the river to my gates. And should they prove unworthy or unable to pass, they must sink into the Styx and make the trip alone. It is far more unpleasant.”

Rey looks back to him, startled. “What do you mean they must pay? Even in death?” She couldn’t help but think about it. How could so many people pay a ferryman while _dead_ , of all things? And how unfair would that be? After all, not everyone had the gold to make payment. She remembers her own days of hunger and poverty without so much as two stones to rub together much less actual coin, depending on petty thievery and the goodwill of others to survive as a child, and her affront at the unfairness of it all immediately locks her spine and forces her to square her shoulders. “What’s the payment?”

Kylo, who seems to have far too much intuition to what’s crossing through her mind—or maybe she’s just that easy to read, she realizes as she watches him twirl his hand and produce an item out of thin air as is his habit—offers her a copper coin.

“Payment,” he says. Rey grabs it, narrowing her eyes. A copper coin. Worth nothing, really. She had seen them thrown into fountains as wishes, thinking it ironic that they would wish upon an empty well, for the fountains of her town no longer worked outside of the few still working inside the cloister. Water was too precious a commodity, but a copper coin… well, even she could get a hold of one of those. People were buried with them on Jakku, placed over their eyes in a semblance of wakefulness so they may enter the next world with eyes wide open. She looks at him then tries to return it, but he closes his hand over hers.

“Should you need to cross the river,” he says cryptically. Rey eyes the coin again, then nearly screams when the coin starts sinking into the palm of her head, the edges glowing blue until nothing remains of it but the ghost of a metallic heat.

“It’s not a real coin?” she asks.

Kylo chuckles. “No.” he says, “it is not a real coin, else everyone would be able to take Mitaka’s boat. It must be earned in life, a reward for what you mortals call _goodness_ ,” he emphasizes the word with hollow tones as if he could hardly care for human goodness or evil either way, as if he doesn't believe in it. “And only then can they afford the one way trip on the barge, as there is no other way in or out unless, as you have seen, I take it upon myself to play guide.”

“So why have you given me one?”

Kylo seems to consider that, nibbling on his lip while he shreds a piece of stiff, dried, salted meat with his glossy black fingernails. She wonders if he’ll say anything about having earned it in life, but instead he shrugs, glancing at her quickly then away. “I deemed you should have it. It is in my power to do so, and so… why not?”

She sighs, throwing her head back in exasperation. Had this man ever been taught how to carry on a conversation in which concrete answers are given? Clearly not. That would be too _human_ , and he’s obviously not _that_. The most basic of concepts seems to elude him, not the least of which that which had been bothering her all night, and one which he seems incapable of not bringing up.

“You asked me why I care so much about those people,” she says, her finger pressing into the still warm spot where Kylo’s coin had disappeared. She now has safe passage through the river—a one-way trip, it seems—solely because he deemed her worthy of the gift in a moment of whimsy she can hardly understand no matter how much she tries to follow his thought patterns, but something else keeps nagging at her again and again. “You asked me why I care so much. I would think you, a lonely person, would understand. They are all I have, horrible as they may sometimes be.”

“Which is why I don’t understand why _you_ continue wanting to return to them. You said it yourself, your mortals are horrible humans.”

“There is good in them.”

Kylo snorts but says nothing, digging back into his meal. Rey finally looks at him, preparing herself to dig in her heels for an argument that seems to have been brewing slowly yet steadily towards this very moment. “There _is_.”

“If you say so.”

He chomps on his food. Rey glares. How can he not understand that? It’s as though the concept escapes him entirely, yet she had _seen_ his loneliness, had felt it in her bones, a twin to match her own. “I don’t understand your indifference. Surely you must have known enough humans to understand my reasoning. We are not meant to be alone.” She wouldn’t go further than that. Would not unearth awful memories that had kept her up all night. “That is why I care. And why I would care if they all suddenly dropped dead since I certainly don’t see you giving _them_ coins for passage.”

Kylo hums but says nothing, choosing instead to give a jerky shrug that looks unnatural on those broad shoulders, his complete lack of empathy blindsiding her.

“People react when they are fearful.”

“I believe you.”

“Then why can you not believe that there is good in them?” she asks doggedly, images of Finn and Poe coming to her in a flash. Sure, she had seen the worst her people could offer, and though she could hardly want to overstep and end up speaking as the token human suddenly defending _all_ of the mortal worlds, for she now knew them to exist, her own corner of the universe had proven that there could be good with the bad, and she had to believe in that goodness. Kylo, again, seems entirely unmoved.

“Because I have yet to see it,” he says after a moment, finally giving up on his meal and tossing it on his golden plate. She’s pushing him too far, she knows, but Rey has never backed up from an argument. “And perhaps you are just too forgiving a mortal for your own good.”

Aha! She has him now. Rey purses her lips. If he wouldn't see it for himself, then she would have to show him, if only because she know she is _right_. “But isn’t forgiveness a trait of goodness in humanity?”

Yes, she has him. He stops again, tilting his head in that way she’s now come to understand as the god of Death being deep in thought, before he lets out a soft breath and shakes his head. “I wouldn’t know.” Then he gets up from the table and extends his hand before she can ask him what he means by it. “Come. It is late. You must be tired.”

She’s not really tired, no. Confused, surely, for she can no longer tell if it is daytime or otherwise, but not tired. She hadn’t, in fact, really felt tired for a while now. Not since… Rey breathes in deeply, the breath returning to her the ghost of lips touching her own, infusing her with power that did not belong in a mortal. She steals a glance at Kylo, her focus finding his mouth like an arrow aimed true.

“I’m not really tired, actually…” the admission is but a single shaky breath.

“Then, is there anything you’d like to do?”

Actually, now that she thinks about it. There is. For the first time in hours, Rey’s spirits lift. Yes, there’s something she’d very much like to experience again.

“Would it be possible to return to the field of flowers?”

Kylo blinks then stretches his fingers further for her to take. His hands are massive, engulfing hers so easily, but when he finally pulls her out of her seat it is not his hand that holds her attention despite how it sears into her, no. It is the utterly pleased look on Ren’s face.

“Of course,” he says, and a moment later, they disappear.

****

He waits until Rey finds her footing, holding onto her tightly by the waist, and watches with unbridled delight as she takes in the poppy field again. He had never loved the cave of dreams, not really. It had simply been yet another part of his realm. One of the more colorful ones, sure, but no more special than any other part—not special at all, really, just like any other part. Yet he finds himself slowly amending that assumption at the look that crosses her very expressive, very vulnerable mortal face. Rey likes it here, and for some perverse reason, Kylo decides that he may just begin to like it by association.

He lets her go, watching as she forgets his presence entirely and marvels at the poppies. One would think she’d never seen anything green the way she walks around so carefully, afraid to even trod upon the grass, and kneels in front of the flowers to breathe them in. What a curious girl, and somehow only becoming more so with every second he spends in her presence, though no such moment has yet to be this openly enjoyed by her, so he stands back and lets her frolick amongst the incandescent flowers, chasing with unrestrained joy after the simple pale blue phantoms of the tiny wood spirits living there, shining as brightly as they at being given a field to play in.

He warns her again not to go near the water, for it will put her to sleep as surely as death itself would, receiving an absentminded _alright!_ for his efforts before she continues on her careful explorations, and if being ignored for the remainder of the night is the price to pay to feel even a small amount of her human joy spread around him at such a simple thing, then it is a price worth paying.

Yet her words earlier had confused him. They had given him pause, unearthing questions he had long buried and opening a chasm he dared not inspect too closely, and that bothers him. His job is not to _commiserate_ with the mortals, but to rule them and judge them, and that is all. That had been his toil for centuries. He had found a precious jewel in _her_ , but she is wrong.

Compassion and forgiveness are not things quickly found amongst the mortals, but everything else? Fear? Pain? Anger that boils up to murderous intentions? That rage that burns down towns and turns neighbor against neighbor? That would see them attempting to kill _him_ if they could as surely as they had tried to sacrifice her? Those he knows of. Those he had judged over and over again for millennia, and he would hardly be surprised to see more of it now. But how can he explain that when she doesn’t have the lived in perspective of hundreds—no, _thousands_ of years? How, when her mortality cannot let her see past itself?

He watches as she lets herself drop spread-eagled onto a flower bed, completely forgetting the gown he had gifted her and getting grass stains all over it, and smiles.

How can such a carefree spirit be simultaneously so stubborn, so set in her ways and unwilling to bend in her views? The same views that had informed her belief system, or lack thereof, and had led her to this very place. An enigma if he ever saw one.

Her refusal bothers him, if only because it somehow feels like a refusal of _him,_ just as her unwillingness to believe in gods before had been a complete erasure and refusal of his existence. And Kylo finds that, for the very same strange reason he is now seeing the field of dreams in a brand new light, he can’t bear the thought that she would refuse him, even if it is only his opinion. He tries to inspect that feeling; that confounding, desperate need for acceptance from a mere mortal, and decides that it, too, is an uncomfortable one. He hadn’t _felt_ anything in a long time. This is unexpected, and Kylo’s not entirely sure what he should do about it. The opinions of a mortal should not even remotely stack against that of a god, and yet here he finds that she distinctly has the upper hand if only because her moods control him. He can hardly change that, can barely bear to scrutinize it within himself, but he _can_ do something about the rest.

If Rey refused to listen to his side of things, then it would be a simple matter of showing her.

All in due time, however. For now, he is content to approach on quiet feet and crouch at her side, an intense sense of deja vu overtaking him as he smiles down at her and reaches out to grab a curl of her hair. Rey blinks rapidly up at him but remains calm on the grass, her joy high and pink on her cheeks still, looking more beautiful than he thought a mere mortal ever could.

That beauty continues to call to him, continues to demand his attention just as much as her wit and her intellect until he can hardly look away. He twines the strand of her silky hair around his fingers and studies her, then plucks a poppy from a stem and places it behind her ear. Somehow it seems to fit far more than any crown or diadem he may create for her, Rey’s smile at the action turning that single poppy into the most priceless of gifts. Her eyes wander around his face before she turns her head towards the distant ceiling of the cave, glassy and pulsing in step with his heartbeat. Her eyes are full of wonder as she unknowingly looks at a part of his very existence and Kylo’s resolve to make her _see_ hardens, unwilling to have her deny even a small part of his existence. He would show her his kingdom. _All_ of his kingdom. And then, then she would understand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! A slower, calmer (fluffier, really, it's just fluffy) chapter before the story starts to pick up rapidly from here on out, so strap yourselves in, this will be fun.

**Author's Note:**

> My thanks to my lovely beta and wifey ejblakit / @darth-ej (on tumblr). Let me know what you guys think! You know what they say, comments & kudos water your local author plant (me).  
> 


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